Transport in Ultra-Thin Heat Pipes for Low Power Applications

TL;DRAbstract

Heat pipes and vapor chamber heat spreaders offer a potential solution to the increasing thermal management challenges in thin-form-factor mobile computing platforms, where efficient spreading is required to simultaneously prevent overheating of internal components and formation of hot regions on the device exterior surfaces. The operating conditions for such applications are also characterized by low input heat fluxes, which in combination with the geometric constraints, give rise to unique performance limitations that require examination. This thesis aims to characterize the steady-state and transient heat pipe performance limitations unique to such ultra-thin form factors, and characterizes the key heat transfer mechanisms governing the performance. A thermal resistance network model and a detailed two-dimensional model are used to analyze the steady-state performance of heat pipes under these conditions. A broad parametric study of geometries and heat inputs using the reduced-order

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