HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER WITH PHASE CHANGE IN CAPILLARY-POROUS BODIES

The purpose of this paper is to give a short summary of some results of fundamental research, published during the last decade, on the simultaneous heat and mass transfer with phase change in homogeneous isotropic and non deformable capillary-porous bodies.
The review deals with theoretical and practical aspects of macroscopic modelling of the processes, as they appear in the operating cycle of a porous heat pipe.
Comparisons between numerical and experimental results, achieved in different boundary and thermodynamic conditions, determine the efficiency of the model on whole phenomena observed experimentally.
Despite the limitations of the theory and the underlying assumptions, the results confirm that the macroscopic mathematical model can be used with some confidence to describe and analyse the physical experiments.