Review of Entrainment and Interfacial Stability in Thermosyphons and Capillary-Driven Heat Pipes

Entrainment in thermosyphons and heat pipes was characterized in view of the interfacial stability associated with the critical Weber number and the entrainment limit at the onset of liquid entrainment from the liquid or wicked interface. Both literature review and theoretical analysis on the entrainment models were peformed in order to evaluate accuracy of the predicted value. For this purpose, the models were categorized in two groups according to their entrainment mechanism and interfacial configurations, i.e., the wave-induced entrainment and the shear-induced entrainment, respectively. Thus, the twelve models(five models for the wave-induced entrainment and seven for the shear induced entrainment) were examined to obtain individual trends and their discrepancies from the general tendency of the overall models. As a result, the critical Weber numbers and entrainment limits were calculated and represented as a function of vapor temperature for the chosen characteristic dimensions of the interface.