A simplified transient three-dimensional model for estimating the thermal performance of the vapor chambers

Abstract

The vapor chambers (flat plate heat pipes) have been applied on the electronic cooling recently. To satisfy the quick-response requirement of the industries, a simplified transient three-dimensional linear model has been developed and tested in this study. In the proposed model, the vapor is assumed as a single interface between the evaporator and condenser wicks, and this assumption enables the vapor chamber to be analyzed by being split into small control volumes. Comparing with the previous available results, the calculated transient responses have shown good agreements with the existing results. For further validation of the proposed model, a water-cooling experiment was conducted. In addition to the vapor chamber, the heating block is also taken into account in the simulation. It is found that the inclusion of the capacitance of heating block shows a better agreement with the measurements.