SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation Heat Pipe

A heat pipe is an extremely efficient device for transferring heat from its hotter surface to its colder surface due to evaporating a liquid and condensing its vapor in this device’s inner hollow.

In Flow Simulation a Heat Pipe is modeled simplistically as an extremely heat-conducting body with a low (or null) thermal resistance. It avoids the need to model the complex two-phase physics happening within the device. The solid body for the pipe should not be hollow. It is internally modeled as a regular solid material with thermal conductivity that corresponds to the geometry and typed in Effective Thermal Resistance.

To define a heat pipe:

1. Select ONE component
2. Specify the heat flux direct, i.e. Heat In and Heat Out faces
3. Enter the heat pipe’s equivalent Effective Thermal Resistance

Heat Pipe Definition

NOTE: This feature is available in the SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation Electronics Cooling Module