Abstract
This project explores the impacts that temperature and various geometries have on head loss in a heat exchanger intended to be used as a component of a pumpless solar thermal heater. The heat exchanger component of the pumpless solar thermal heater is a vertical pipe configuration with one inlet pipe through which water flows downward to a well. There are a number of outlet pipes through which water flows upward from the well. The outlet pipes contain a number of conical features at some angle that act as fins to increase heat transfer. The entire heat exchanger is assumed to be submersed in a shell at constant temperature. A Python program was developed using the NTU method to calculate the temperature variation from the inlet to the outlet of the heat exchanger across a varied set of geometry parameters, including: number of outlet pipes, outlet pipe diameter, number of conical features, and angle of conical features. The impact of the temperature variation was accounted for in the head loss calculation within the Python program. For a set of head loss values, an optimized set of geometry parameters was found to maximize the outlet temperature.
