STUDY ON THE HEAT PIPE - 3. HEAT TRANSFER MECHANISM IN THE EVAPORATOR OF HEAT PIPE WITH SCREEN MESH WICK.

The purpose of this study is to obtain a better understanding of the heat transfer mechanism in the evaporator of a heat pipe. In the previous report, sintered powder was tested as a wick and it was concluded that the heat transfer mechanism involved thermal resistance of conduction through the wick-liquid matrix and evaporation resistance at the liquid-vapor interface. In this report, various kinds of screen meshes are used as the wick and pure water as the working fluid, to evaluate the effect of working pressure and the number of screen layers on the heat transfer. Experimental results indicate that the heat transfer mechanism for screen mesh is equivalent to that for sintered powder. The authors intend to expand the analytical method discussed earlier and to establish an experimental correlation which can be used for practical design of heat pipe evaporator with screen mesh.