Comparative study and validation of a new analytical method for hydraulic modelling of bidirectional low temperature networks

Marwan Abugabbara, Jonas Lindhe, Saqib Javed, Dennis Johansson and Johan Claesson

Energy, 2024, vol. 296, issue C

Abstract: Bidirectional Low Temperature Networks (BLTNs) are an innovative technology of district heating and cooling systems. Because of their intrinsic feature of supplying simultaneous heating and cooling either directly from an energy source/sink or through distributed heat pumps and chillers, circulation pumps installed at each building extract water from the network and a distinct pressure cone is subsequently created. Variations in the amount (and direction) of the extracted water call for accurate hydraulic design and analysis to ensure safe and adequate network operation. This paper proposes a new analytical solution method for fast hydraulic modelling of BLTNs. The analytical method was compared against three numerical solution methods and validated using different current and future operating scenarios of a real-world bidirectional network. In all modelled cases, the calculated mass flows and pressure drops using the new analytical method yielded very small Normalised Mean Bias Error (NMBE) and Coefficient of Variation of the Root Mean Square Error (CV(RMSE)), suggesting excellent agreement between the analytical and numerical solution methods. The new analytical method offers better performance over its numerical counterparts due to its explicit nature, ease of implementation, and quick modelling time.

Keywords: District heating and cooling; BLTN; Analytical solution; Bifurcation function; Pressure gradient curves (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544224009411
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:296:y:2024:i:c:s0360544224009411

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2024.131168

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().