ANALYTICAL SOLUTIONS OF FLOW AND HEAT-TRANSFER IN A POROUS STRUCTURE WITH PARTIAL HEATING AND EVAPORATION ON THE UPPER SURFACE

A porous structure with partial heating and evaporation on the upper s urface is studied analytically. The liquid pressure and velocities are obtained by solving a Laplace-type equation for the porous structure. A perturbation method is applied for the temperature distribution wit h higher heat inputs, which consists of zeroth-order solution and a te mperature correction. For the temperature correction, an approximate s olution is derived using an integral formulation. The analytical solut ion obtained is useful for the evaporator performance and design of ca pillary pumped loops.