OPERATION LIMITS FOR ROTATING CYLINDRICAL HEAT PIPES

The rotation in cylindrical heat pipes becomes important at high angular velocity, when recirculation cells appear, grow and scatfter in the vapor phase from the evaporator section, reducing the efficiency of the heat pipe and obstructing the phase change. The 1-D formulations are not yet able to provide such estimation. In this work, a steady rotating cylindrical heat pipe is simulated, coupling the vapor zone and porous medium. Several values for angular and linear Reynolds number are shown, for several boundary conditions in the condenser section. A limiting curve for heat pipe operation is presented for each boundary condition.