IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v11y2019i20p5738-d277340.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Experimenting and Modeling Thermal Performance of Ground Heat Exchanger Under Freezing Soil Conditions

Author

Listed:
  • Shuyang Tu

    (Institute of HVAC Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
    China Southwest Architectural Design and Research Institute, Chengdu, Sichuan 610041, China)

  • Xiuqin Yang

    (Institute of HVAC Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China)

  • Xiang Zhou

    (Institute of HVAC Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China)

  • Maohui Luo

    (Center for the Built Environment, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94703, USA)

  • Xu Zhang

    (Institute of HVAC Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China)

Abstract

Many studies have investigated the thermal performance of ground heat exchangers (GHEs) under normal conditions with inlet temperatures above 0 °C, but the freezing soil condition has been absent. We conducted a three-month test to investigate the heat transfer of GHE with inlet water-glycol temperatures of −7~0 °C. An improved thermal resistance and capacity (RC) model was developed to investigate the heat transfer between vertical single U-tube GHEs and the frozen soil. After validating with experimental results and CFD simulations, the RC model was applied to analyze GHEs’ thermal performance under different freezing soil conditions. It shows that the frozen soil increases GHE’s heat transfer capacity by 30% and the freezing inlet temperature has limited impacts on temperature distribution around the exchanger (with < 4 m influence radius). The GHEs’ heat transfer rate remained at 75~80 W/m throughout the three-month test, which is surprisingly high to ensure the normal operation of the ground source heat pump (GSHP). These findings can be references for designing and operating GSHP systems in cold and severe cold climate zones, and the RC model can be applied to analyze future GHEs performance with phase change processes.

Suggested Citation

  • Shuyang Tu & Xiuqin Yang & Xiang Zhou & Maohui Luo & Xu Zhang, 2019. "Experimenting and Modeling Thermal Performance of Ground Heat Exchanger Under Freezing Soil Conditions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-18, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:20:p:5738-:d:277340
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/20/5738/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/20/5738/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. You, Tian & Wu, Wei & Shi, Wenxing & Wang, Baolong & Li, Xianting, 2016. "An overview of the problems and solutions of soil thermal imbalance of ground-coupled heat pumps in cold regions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 515-536.
    2. Pasquier, Philippe & Marcotte, Denis, 2012. "Short-term simulation of ground heat exchanger with an improved TRCM," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 92-99.
    3. Barret L. Kurylyk & Masaki Hayashi, 2016. "Improved Stefan Equation Correction Factors to Accommodate Sensible Heat Storage during Soil Freezing or Thawing," Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(2), pages 189-203, April.
    4. Li, Min & Li, Ping & Chan, Vincent & Lai, Alvin C.K., 2014. "Full-scale temperature response function (G-function) for heat transfer by borehole ground heat exchangers (GHEs) from sub-hour to decades," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 197-205.
    5. Zarrella, Angelo & De Carli, Michele, 2013. "Heat transfer analysis of short helical borehole heat exchangers," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 1477-1491.
    6. De Carli, Michele & Tonon, Massimo & Zarrella, Angelo & Zecchin, Roberto, 2010. "A computational capacity resistance model (CaRM) for vertical ground-coupled heat exchangers," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(7), pages 1537-1550.
    7. Maestre, Ismael Rodríguez & Gallero, Francisco Javier González & Gómez, Pascual Álvarez & Pérez-Lombard, Luis, 2015. "A new RC and g-function hybrid model to simulate vertical ground heat exchangers," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 631-642.
    8. Wu, Wei & Wang, Baolong & You, Tian & Shi, Wenxing & Li, Xianting, 2013. "A potential solution for thermal imbalance of ground source heat pump systems in cold regions: Ground source absorption heat pump," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 39-48.
    9. Zarrella, Angelo & Capozza, Antonio & De Carli, Michele, 2013. "Analysis of short helical and double U-tube borehole heat exchangers: A simulation-based comparison," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 358-370.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tao Wang & Jiazeng Cao & Xiangjun Pei & Zequn Hong & Yaohui Liu & Guoqing Zhou, 2022. "Research on Spatial Scale of Fluctuation for the Uncertain Thermal Parameters of Artificially Frozen Soil," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-13, December.
    2. Kunning Yang & Takao Katsura & Shigeyuki Nagasaka & Katsunori Nagano, 2023. "Analyzing the Performance of Double Spiral Tube Ground Heat Exchangers in a Zero-Energy Building Using Measurement Data," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-25, October.
    3. Vivek Aggarwal & Chandan Swaroop Meena & Ashok Kumar & Tabish Alam & Anuj Kumar & Arijit Ghosh & Aritra Ghosh, 2020. "Potential and Future Prospects of Geothermal Energy in Space Conditioning of Buildings: India and Worldwide Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-19, October.
    4. Zhi, Chengqiang & Yang, Xiuqin & Zhou, Xiang & Tu, Shuyang & Zhang, Xu, 2022. "A revised sizing method for borehole heat exchangers in the Chinese national standard based on reliability and economy," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 17-29.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Javadi, Hossein & Mousavi Ajarostaghi, Seyed Soheil & Rosen, Marc A. & Pourfallah, Mohsen, 2019. "Performance of ground heat exchangers: A comprehensive review of recent advances," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 207-233.
    2. Carotenuto, Alberto & Ciccolella, Michela & Massarotti, Nicola & Mauro, Alessandro, 2016. "Models for thermo-fluid dynamic phenomena in low enthalpy geothermal energy systems: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 330-355.
    3. Nian, Yong-Le & Cheng, Wen-Long, 2018. "Insights into geothermal utilization of abandoned oil and gas wells," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 44-60.
    4. Somogyi, Viola & Sebestyén, Viktor & Nagy, Georgina, 2017. "Scientific achievements and regulation of shallow geothermal systems in six European countries – A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 68(P2), pages 934-952.
    5. Li, Min & Lai, Alvin C.K., 2015. "Review of analytical models for heat transfer by vertical ground heat exchangers (GHEs): A perspective of time and space scales," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 178-191.
    6. Cui, Yuanlong & Zhu, Jie & Twaha, Ssennoga & Riffat, Saffa, 2018. "A comprehensive review on 2D and 3D models of vertical ground heat exchangers," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 84-114.
    7. Shah, Sheikh Khaleduzzaman & Aye, Lu & Rismanchi, Behzad, 2018. "Seasonal thermal energy storage system for cold climate zones: A review of recent developments," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 38-49.
    8. Claudia Naldi & Enzo Zanchini, 2019. "Full-Time-Scale Fluid-to-Ground Thermal Response of a Borefield with Uniform Fluid Temperature," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(19), pages 1-18, September.
    9. Pasquier, Philippe, 2018. "Interpretation of the first hours of a thermal response test using the time derivative of the temperature," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 56-75.
    10. Anjan Rao Puttige & Staffan Andersson & Ronny Östin & Thomas Olofsson, 2020. "A Novel Analytical-ANN Hybrid Model for Borehole Heat Exchanger," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-19, November.
    11. Shah, Sheikh Khaleduzzaman & Aye, Lu & Rismanchi, Behzad, 2022. "Validations of a double U-tube borehole model and a seasonal solar thermal energy storage system model," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 201(P1), pages 462-485.
    12. Farzaneh-Gord, Mahmood & Ghezelbash, Reza & Sadi, Meisam & Moghadam, Ali Jabari, 2016. "Integration of vertical ground-coupled heat pump into a conventional natural gas pressure drop station: Energy, economic and CO2 emission assessment," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 998-1014.
    13. Ghezelbash, Reza & Farzaneh-Gord, Mahmood & Behi, Hamidreza & Sadi, Meisam & Khorramabady, Heshmatollah Shams, 2015. "Performance assessment of a natural gas expansion plant integrated with a vertical ground-coupled heat pump," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 93(P2), pages 2503-2517.
    14. Aneta Sapińska-Sliwa & Marc A. Rosen & Andrzej Gonet & Joanna Kowalczyk & Tomasz Sliwa, 2019. "A New Method Based on Thermal Response Tests for Determining Effective Thermal Conductivity and Borehole Resistivity for Borehole Heat Exchangers," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-22, March.
    15. Biglarian, Hassan & Abbaspour, Madjid & Saidi, Mohammad Hassan, 2017. "A numerical model for transient simulation of borehole heat exchangers," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 224-237.
    16. Guo, Min & Diao, Nairen & Man, Yi & Fang, Zhaohong, 2016. "Research and development of the hybrid ground-coupled heat pump technology in China," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 87(P3), pages 1033-1044.
    17. Rivera, Jaime A. & Blum, Philipp & Bayer, Peter, 2016. "A finite line source model with Cauchy-type top boundary conditions for simulating near surface effects on borehole heat exchangers," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 50-63.
    18. Shi, Yu & Song, Xianzhi & Wang, Gaosheng & McLennan, John & Forbes, Bryan & Li, Xiaojiang & Li, Jiacheng, 2019. "Study on wellbore fluid flow and heat transfer of a multilateral-well CO2 enhanced geothermal system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 249(C), pages 14-27.
    19. Li, Min & Lai, Alvin C.K., 2013. "Analytical model for short-time responses of ground heat exchangers with U-shaped tubes: Model development and validation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 510-516.
    20. Biglarian, Hassan & Abbaspour, Madjid & Saidi, Mohammad Hassan, 2018. "Evaluation of a transient borehole heat exchanger model in dynamic simulation of a ground source heat pump system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 81-93.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:20:p:5738-:d:277340. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.