ABSTRACT
The industrial applications of porous media involving heat transfer have become very widely spread. There are numerous applications that deal with heat transfer studies in porous media including heat pipes, porous media burners, and porous evaporators. The topic becomes interesting and challenging as the heat transfer conjoins with the wicking process in porous media. Investigating the coupling of heat transfer and wicking has had a long history in literature. The chapter presents previous instances of some the most-applied applications of the wicking process conjugated with heat transfer. In all the considered applications, heat transfer plays an important role in wicking compared to the case of the “pure” wicking process under isothermal conditions. One of the most complicated and advanced set of studies has been done in propellant management devices (PMDs) or liquid acquisition devices. PMDs are static metallic structures inside spacecraft propellant tanks that use only the surface tension to ensure gas-free liquid delivery to the tank outlet.
