Conjugate Numerical Investigation of a Miniature Flat Plate Evaporator of Capillary Pumped Loop

Abstract

The capillary pumped loop (CPL) is a two-phase thermal control device, which has become more active and interesting in the domain of electronics cooling. A two-dimensional conjugate numerical model for the miniature flat plate capillary evaporator is presented to describe liquid and vapor flow, heat transfer and phase change in the porous wick structure, liquid flow and heat transfer in the compensation cavity and heat transfer in the vapor grooves and metallic wall. The entire evaporator is solved with SIMPLE algorithm as a conjugate problem. The shape and location of vapor-liquid interface inside the wick are calculated, and side wall effect heat transfer limit is introduced to estimate the heat transport capability of capillary evaporator. The influences of different wall materials on the performance of miniature flat plate evaporator are discussed in detail, and the results show that evaporator with combined wall is capable of dissipating high heat flux and stabilizes the electronics devices temperature at a moderate temperature level.