Numerical Analysis of Two-Phase Flow in Sintered Copper Wick by Lattice Boltzmann Method

Thermal management is one of the significant issues in improving the performance of new electric or hybrid vehicles. Since heat pipes can conduct a large heat flux per unit mass, this device is expected to be a key technology in making progress in the energy efficiency of automobiles. The structure of the wick affects the performance and operating conditions of the heat pipe. A wick made of sintered metal powder is used as a sort of the material for the heat pipe because it is easy to control the thickness and the porosity [1]. Though the sintered wick shows high performance and usability, it is difficult to know the physical phenomena of a two-phase flow in the wick because of the complexity of its fabric. The eventual aims of our study are to elucidate the mass and heat transfer in a porous wick and to optimise the structure of the wick for heat pipes. The numerical simulations of the fluid flow in porous media by means of the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) have been reported from the 1990’s because the LBM is a promising numerical method for fluid dynamics and suitable for complex boundary structures such as porous media[2].