Copper metal foam as an essential construction element of innovative heat exchanger

Abstract

Paper deals with creation of the innovative heat exchanger - manifold header for the heat pipe evacuated tube solar collector, which essential functional element is heat exchange chamber made of the copper metal foam. Design of the heat exchanger is based on effective utilization of the unique properties of the metal foam which makes it possible to design highly effective and space saving devices. Inner volume of heat exchanger was reducing from 0,00045 m3 to 0,000135 m3 and heat exchange surface was increase from 0,0104 m2 to 0,1403 m2 at proposed prototype, what drastically increase heat exchange efficiency. The proposal itself is based on the unique physical properties of the metal foam, which was described by computational analysis.

Keywords

• copper metal foam
• solar collector
• heat exchanger
• computational fluid dynamics