Evaporation en film mince dans un caloduc rainuré

Evaporative thin film inside a grooved heat pipe

¹ GDR CNRS 2613 Thermique des Engins Spatiaux Laboratoire d’études thermiques, 1 Ave Clément Ader 86960 Futuroscope CEDEX
² Laboratoire d’Etude des systèmes Thermiques et Energétiques 5019 Monastir, Tunisie

Auteur de correspondance : cyril.romestant@let.ensma.fr

Abstract

Evaporative thin film inside a grooved heat pipe: Axially grooved heat pipes are widely used in space applications like thermal control of communications satellites. Inside the heat pipe, evaporation mostly takes place in microscopic region where the meniscus (liquid-vapour interface) is attached to the solid wall. This zone is one of the most important boundary condition to calculate the evaporating heat transfer conductance. An evaporating thin liquid film is commonly used to model this preponderant heat transfer region (typically from 30 to 60% of the heat flux though less than 1% of the surface). This model leads to a system of differential equations that is very tricky to solve due to extreme sensitivity of initial conditions. Nevertheless, relation between wetting contact angle and meniscus curvature inside grooves is re-examined in respect of the obtained results.