Thermal Management in Two-Phase Heat Transfer Systems

Two-phase heat transfer systems harness the latent heat of a working fluid to achieve exceptionally high thermal conductance while operating without mechanical pumps. In these devices, heat input at an evaporator induces phase change to vapour, which migrates to a cooler condenser region to release latent heat and return as liquid via capillary forces or gravity. Common embodiments include heat pipes, thermosyphons and loop heat pipes. Their passive circulation, compact form factor and low thermal resistance have made them indispensable in electronics cooling, renewable-energy harvesting and industrial waste-heat recovery. Recent efforts focus on enhancing transient response, tailoring wick and channel geometries, and developing predictive models that couple boiling, condensation and two-phase flow dynamics. Advances in multi-channel architectures and integrated thermal-electrical analogue networks are driving more accurate design tools, while novel surface treatments and hybrid working fluids improve operational limits and orientation tolerance. The global significance of these systems spans from high-performance computing to green building climate control.

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Thermal Management in Two-Phase Heat Transfer Systems publication trend

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Technical terms

Heat pipe: Passive two-phase device that transports heat via evaporation and condensation of a working fluid within a sealed, thermally conductive envelope.

Thermosyphon: Gravity-driven two-phase heat transfer device where liquid-vapour circulation occurs without a wick, relying on density differences between phases.

Thermal resistance: Quantitative measure of a system’s opposition to heat flow, expressed as temperature drop per unit heat flux (K/W).

Capillary wick: Porous internal structure in a heat pipe that returns condensate to the evaporator by capillary forces.

NTU (Number of Transfer Units) method: Analytical approach to heat-exchanger performance that relates heat transfer rate to the capacity ratio of two fluid streams, independent of temperature profiles.

References

1. Experimental and theoretical investigation of the performance of an air to water multi-pass heat pipe-based heat exchanger. Energy (2021).
2. Experimental and theoretical investigation of the influence of heat transfer rate on the thermal performance of a multi-channel flat heat pipe. Energy (2022).
3. Experimental investigation, CFD and theoretical modeling of two-phase heat transfer in a three-leg multi-channel heat pipe. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer (2023).