• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.29 no.6 s.237
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• pp.747-754
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• 2005

Because the liquid-vapor interfacial shear stress affects seriously the liquid flow and the maximum heat transport rate of the grooved wick heat pipe, an accurate modeling for the pressure drop characteristics of the liquid flow is required. A novel method for calculating the liquid pressure drop and the velocity profile of an open channel flow in a microchannel with an arbitrary cross-section is suggested and validated by experiments. An experimental apparatus for the Poiseuille number of the liquid flow in open rectangular microchannels with the hydraulic diameters of 0.40mm, 0.43mm, 0.48mm is used in order to reproduce real situations in the grooved wick heat pipe. Analytic results from the suggested method are compared with the experimental data and they are in a close agreement with each other.