Invention Journal of Research Technology in Engineering & Management (IJRTEM) ISSN: 2455-3689 www.ijrtem.com Volume 1 Issue 1 ǁ Feb. 2016 ǁ PP 01-05
CFD Base Performance Evaluation of Earth-Air Tube Heat Exchanger for Natural Air Conditioning Pankaj Badgaiyan1, prof. Surendra Agrawal2 Surbhi Group of Institution, Bhopal
ABSTRACT: The earths inside temperature is commonly higher than the outside air temperature in winter and lower in summer so it can makes the use of the earth convenient as warm source or cold sink respectively. Earth air heat exchanger can contributes to reduce in energy consumption. Numbers of research have been carried out on Computational Fluid Dynamics analysis of EATHE systems and still it requires optimum redevelopment. In the present work a 3D CAD model was developed for CFD analysis of earth air tube heat exchanger (EATHE) system. The obtained simulated results were compared with experimental results obtained from experimental setup installed at Bhopal situated in Central India. The temperature of earth at a certain depth about 2 m to 3 m of ground remains nearly constant throughout the year this constant temperature is called the undisturbed temperature of earth. The performance evolution was carried out to check the effect of pipe length, air flow velocity, depth of buried pipe and pipe diameter of EATHE system for summer cooling. The result shows that this system is more convenient only for summer cooling and not suitable for winter heating. KEYWORDS: CAD Modeling, Earth‐Air Tube Heat Exchanger, CFD Analysis, etc
1. INTRODUCTION Earth‐air heat exchanger is a device which can effectively utilize the thermal energy of earth for heating/cooling applications of buildings, offices, residential, industries etc. The physical phenomenon of earth air heat exchanger is simple: the earth interior temperature commonly higher than the outside air temperature in winter and lower in summer, so it makes the use of the earth convenient as warm or cold sink respectively. Both of the above uses of earth air heat exchanger can contribute to reduction in energy consumption. The air passes through mild steel pipes buried underground at a 3 m depth gets cooled in summer season is supplied to the space to be conditioned and vice versa in winter. The thermal performance of EATHE system depends mainly on two factors: one is atmospheric conditions and soil properties; second is operating parameters like air flow velocity, pipe diameter, pipe length and depth of buried pipe. The climatic conditions and soil properties cannot be changed so, to improve the thermal performance of EATHE system operating parameters are to be optimized. A considerable amount of electrical energy can be saved if EAHE system is designed properly, so three dimensional CAD model was developed for CFD analysis of earth air tube heat exchanger (EATHE) system. Because of the high thermal inertia of the exterior climate are damped deeper in the ground. Further a delay arises between the temperature fluctuations within the ground and at the surface. Thus at a sufficient depth the soil temperature is lower than the outside air temperature in summer and higher in winter. When the fresh air is drawn through the earth tube heat exchanger the air is thus cooled in summer and heated in winter. In combination with other passive system and good thermal design of the building, the earth air heat exchanger can be used to preheat air in winter and avoid air conditioning units in building in summer, which result in a major reduction in electricity consumption of a building.
2. LITERATURE REVEIW Lot of researchers has carried out on CFD analysis of EAHE systems. By review previous research papers published by many authors we can have an idea on how it works. Mihalakakou et al. [1], Lee and Strand [2] investigated the effect of pipe radius, pipe length, air flow rate and pipe depth on the overall performance of the earth tube under various conditions during cooling season. Pipe length and pipe depth turned out to affect the overall cooling rate of the earth tube, while pipe radius and air flow rate mainly affect earth tube inlet temperature. [3] Misra et al. analyzed the effects of time duration of continuous operation, thermal conductivity of soil pipe diameter and flow velocity on thermal performance of Earth Air Tunnel Heat Exchanger (EATHE) under transient conditions. They found that the effect of pipe diameter due to prolonged use of EATHE system on its thermal performance is least in case of soil with higher value of thermal conductivity and the increase in flow velocity leads to drop in thermal performance of EATHE system [4] Wu et al. presented a transient and implicit numerical model and implemented it on the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics platform), PHOENICS, to evaluate the effects of the operating parameters (i.e. the pipe length, radius, depth and air flow rate) on the thermal performance and cooling capacity of earth–air–pipe systems. The simulation results were obtained for pipe length of 20, 40 and 60 m; pipe radius of 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 m; depth of burial of 1.6, 3.2 and 5 m; air flow rate of 1, 2 and 4 m/s. It was concluded that longer pipes and higher depth of burial results in higher cooling capacity while increase in pipe radius and air flow rate results in increase of both outlet air temperature and heating capacity.
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