Transient effect of soil thermal conductivity and duration of operation on performance of Earth Air Tunnel Heat Exchanger

Vikas Bansal, Rohit Misra, Ghanshyam Das Agarwal and Jyotirmay Mathur

Applied Energy, 2013, vol. 103, issue C, 11 pages

Abstract: Effect of soil thermal conductivity and time period of continuous operation of EATHE on thermal performance has been carried out for different pipe length of EATHE using experimentally validated CFD simulation. In this paper, the authors aim to study the underground temperature characteristics of the soil surrounding the EATHE pipe and the effect of duration of operation of EATHE on its thermal performance. Maximum air temperature drop of 15.6, 17.0 and 17.3K are observed for soil thermal conductivities of 0.52, 2 and 4Wm−1K−1 respectively. Maximum deterioration in the performance in terms of temperature drop obtained during continuous operation of 24h is recorded as 2.9K for soil with thermal conductivity of 0.52Wm−1K−1. Thickness of soil annulus surrounding the pipe up to which the thermal influence is observed depends on the thermal conductivity of the soil and period of continuous running of EATHE system. The thickness of the soil annulus beyond which no significant rise in temperature of soil is observed is equal to the pipe diameter.

Keywords: Earth Air Tunnel Heat Exchanger; Passive cooling; Computational Fluid Dynamics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2012.10.014

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