Testing and analysis of load-side immersed heat exchangers for solar domestic hot water systems

Abstract

This report describes work to determine the performance of load-side heat exchangers for use in residential solar domestic hot water systems. We measured the performance of four heat exchangers: a smooth coil and a finned coil having heat transfer areas of 2.5 m/sup 2/ (26 ft/sup 2/) and those having areas of 1.7 m/sup 2/ (19 ft/sup 2/). A numerical model using the thermal network program MITAS was constructed, and results were compared to the experimental results. Research showed a smooth coil with only 70% of the surface area of a finned coil performed better than the finned coil. Also, load-side heat exchangers can maintain and enhance stratification in storage tanks, permitting the use of control strategies that take advantage of stratified storage tanks to increase system performance. The analytical model, which agreed reasonably well with the experimental results, was used to vary heat exchanger flow rate and area and initial tank temperature for both a smooth- and a finned-coil heat exchanger. Increasing the heat exchanger flow rate and area results in higher heat transfer rates but not necessarily optimal performance. Lower initial tank temperatures resulted in reduced tank stratification. The smooth heat exchanger outperformed the finned heat exchanger withmore » the same outside surface area. 15 refs., 37 figs., 9 tabs.« less