The temperature distribution across a flat heat pipe sandwich structure, subjected to an intense localized thermal flux has been investigated both experimentally and computationally. The aluminum sandwich structure consisted of a pair of aluminum alloy face sheets, a truncated square honeycomb (cruciform) core, a nickel metal foam wick and distilled water as the working fluid. Heat was applied via a propane torch to the evaporator side of the flat heat pipe, while the condenser side was cooled via natural convective and radiative heat transfer. A novel method was developed to estimate experimentally, the heat flux distribution of the torch on the evaporator side. This heat flux distribution was modeled using a probability function and validated against the experimental data. Applying the estimated heat flux distribution as the surface boundary condition, a finite volume analysis was performed for the wall, wick and vapor core regions of the flat heat pipe to obtain the field variables in these domains. The results were found to agree well with the experimental data indicating the thermal spreading effect of the flat heat pipe. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.