Study On High Performance Evaporator With Micro-Grooves (Measurement Of Capillary Force In A Single Groove And Modeling Of Heat And Mass Transfer)

A micro-grooved evaporator is composed of mu m-wide grooves on a heat transfer plate in which the inter-line regions at the liquid-vapor meniscus of coolant become identifiable. The high-heat performance of the evaporator is realized by this inter-line region (ILR) where the liquid thin film reduces the thermal resistance on the heat transfer surface. In this report, we propose a numerical simulation model of heat and mass transfer in a single groove to predict its capillary force and heat flux. The capillary force performance (capillary-rise length in a groove) of a single groove was measured for samples of varying width, superheat, and inclination. The performance was found to be a maximum at a specific groove width of 200-400 mu m, which is in good agreement with the predicted results calculated by the proposed model. For a better prediction of capillary-rise length, the effective capillary force and the effective flow resistance were considered. (C) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.