IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v9y2017i3p356-d91784.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Performance Evaluation of Borehole Heat Exchanger in Multilayered Subsurface

Author

Listed:
  • Yong Li

    (Institute of military environmental Teaching & Research, PLA University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210007, China
    School of Energy and Environment, Southeast University, Nanjing 210007, China)

  • Shibin Geng

    (Institute of military environmental Teaching & Research, PLA University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210007, China)

  • Xu Han

    (Institute of military environmental Teaching & Research, PLA University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210007, China)

  • Hua Zhang

    (Institute of military environmental Teaching & Research, PLA University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210007, China)

  • Fusheng Peng

    (Institute of military environmental Teaching & Research, PLA University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210007, China)

Abstract

In layered subsurface, the soil around a vertical borehole heat exchanger (BHE) contains different geological layers. Non-uniformity and groundwater flow can affect the performance of BHE drastically. In this paper, through the field investigation of boreholes in Zhu Shan, Nanjing, China, a numerical model considering five strata is developed. Using thermal resistance and capacity models for inside borehole and a combination of a locally refined grid for discretizing and solving the soil mass governing equations, the numerical model is calculated and validated by field test data. The maximum temperature difference never exceeds 0.3 °C. The numerical model is also compared with the homogenous finite line source (FLS) model. Based on the numerical multilayered model, the axial temperature profile at different distances under different heating times are presented and explored. After 60 days heating at the distance of 0.2 m to heat injection borehole, the maximum temperature rise is 9.2 °C in unsaturated soil layer, but the temperature rise in aquifer layer and in fractured layer are only 7.6 °C and 6.7 °C, respectively. Furthermore, two modified numerical layered models, in which the groundwater flow in aquifer or fracture layer is negligible, are established to analyze how the different layered characteristics impact on performance of BHE. The results showed that ignoring the groundwater flow in aquifer layer made the outlet temperature 0.7 °C higher than that of the original numerical layered model.

Suggested Citation

  • Yong Li & Shibin Geng & Xu Han & Hua Zhang & Fusheng Peng, 2017. "Performance Evaluation of Borehole Heat Exchanger in Multilayered Subsurface," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-16, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:3:p:356-:d:91784
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/3/356/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/3/356/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nguyen, Hiep V. & Law, Ying Lam E. & Alavy, Masih & Walsh, Philip R. & Leong, Wey H. & Dworkin, Seth B., 2014. "An analysis of the factors affecting hybrid ground-source heat pump installation potential in North America," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 28-38.
    2. Raymond, J. & Therrien, R. & Gosselin, L. & Lefebvre, R., 2011. "Numerical analysis of thermal response tests with a groundwater flow and heat transfer model," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 315-324.
    3. Raymond, J. & Lamarche, L., 2013. "Simulation of thermal response tests in a layered subsurface," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 293-301.
    4. Blum, Philipp & Campillo, Gisela & Kölbel, Thomas, 2011. "Techno-economic and spatial analysis of vertical ground source heat pump systems in Germany," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 3002-3011.
    5. Choi, Jung Chan & Park, Joonsang & Lee, Seung Rae, 2013. "Numerical evaluation of the effects of groundwater flow on borehole heat exchanger arrays," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 230-240.
    6. Luo, Jin & Rohn, Joachim & Xiang, Wei & Bayer, Manfred & Priess, Anna & Wilkmann, Lucas & Steger, Hagen & Zorn, Roman, 2015. "Experimental investigation of a borehole field by enhanced geothermal response test and numerical analysis of performance of the borehole heat exchangers," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 473-484.
    7. 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.
    8. Gao, Qing & Li, Ming & Yu, Ming, 2010. "Experiment and simulation of temperature characteristics of intermittently-controlled ground heat exchanges," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 1169-1174.
    9. Fossa, Marco & Minchio, Fabio, 2013. "The effect of borefield geometry and ground thermal load profile on hourly thermal response of geothermal heat pump systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 323-329.
    10. Gehlin, S.E.A. & Hellström, G., 2003. "Influence on thermal response test by groundwater flow in vertical fractures in hard rock," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 28(14), pages 2221-2238.
    11. Capozza, Antonio & De Carli, Michele & Zarrella, Angelo, 2013. "Investigations on the influence of aquifers on the ground temperature in ground-source heat pump operation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 350-363.
    12. Luo, Jin & Rohn, Joachim & Bayer, Manfred & Priess, Anna & Xiang, Wei, 2014. "Analysis on performance of borehole heat exchanger in a layered subsurface," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 55-65.
    13. Lamarche, Louis, 2009. "A fast algorithm for the hourly simulations of ground-source heat pumps using arbitrary response factors," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2252-2258.
    14. Lei, Fei & Hu, Pingfang & Zhu, Na & Wu, Tianhua, 2015. "Periodic heat flux composite model for borehole heat exchanger and its application," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 132-142.
    15. Florides, Georgios A. & Christodoulides, Paul & Pouloupatis, Panayiotis, 2013. "Single and double U-tube ground heat exchangers in multiple-layer substrates," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 364-373.
    16. Lee, C.K., 2011. "Effects of multiple ground layers on thermal response test analysis and ground-source heat pump simulation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(12), pages 4405-4410.
    17. 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.
    18. Lee, C.K. & Lam, H.N., 2012. "A modified multi-ground-layer model for borehole ground heat exchangers with an inhomogeneous groundwater flow," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 378-387.
    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. Elżbieta Hałaj & Leszek Pająk & Bartosz Papiernik, 2020. "Finite Element Modeling of Geothermal Source of Heat Pump in Long-Term Operation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-18, March.
    2. Monika Gwadera & Barbara Larwa & Krzysztof Kupiec, 2017. "Undisturbed Ground Temperature—Different Methods of Determination," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-14, November.

    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. 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.
    2. Shibin Geng & Yong Li & Xu Han & Huiliang Lian & Hua Zhang, 2016. "Evaluation of Thermal Anomalies in Multi-Boreholes Field Considering the Effects of Groundwater Flow," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(6), pages 1-19, June.
    3. Raymond, Jasmin & Lamarche, Louis & Malo, Michel, 2015. "Field demonstration of a first thermal response test with a low power source," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 30-39.
    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. 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.
    6. Jin, Guang & Li, Zheng & Guo, Shaopeng & Wu, Xuan & Wu, Wenfei & Zhang, Kai, 2020. "Thermal performance analysis of multiple borehole heat exchangers in multilayer geotechnical media," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    7. Hu, Jinzhong, 2017. "An improved analytical model for vertical borehole ground heat exchanger with multiple-layer substrates and groundwater flow," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 537-549.
    8. 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.
    9. Tye-Gingras, Maxime & Gosselin, Louis, 2014. "Generic ground response functions for ground exchangers in the presence of groundwater flow," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 354-366.
    10. 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.
    11. Zhao, Zilong & Lin, Yu-Feng & Stumpf, Andrew & Wang, Xinlei, 2022. "Assessing impacts of groundwater on geothermal heat exchangers: A review of methodology and modeling," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 121-147.
    12. Luo, Jin & Rohn, Joachim & Xiang, Wei & Bayer, Manfred & Priess, Anna & Wilkmann, Lucas & Steger, Hagen & Zorn, Roman, 2015. "Experimental investigation of a borehole field by enhanced geothermal response test and numerical analysis of performance of the borehole heat exchangers," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 473-484.
    13. Zhang, Changxing & Guo, Zhanjun & Liu, Yufeng & Cong, Xiaochun & Peng, Donggen, 2014. "A review on thermal response test of ground-coupled heat pump systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 851-867.
    14. Zhang, Donghai & Gao, Penghui & Zhou, Yang & Wang, Yijiang & Zhou, Guoqing, 2020. "An experimental and numerical investigation on temperature profile of underground soil in the process of heat storage," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 1-21.
    15. Zhou, Guoqing & Zhou, Yang & Zhang, Donghai, 2016. "Analytical solutions for two pile foundation heat exchanger models in a double-layered ground," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 655-668.
    16. Li, Wenxin & Li, Xiangdong & Wang, Yong & Du, Ruiqing & Tu, Jiyuan, 2019. "Effect of the heat load distribution on thermal performance predictions of ground heat exchangers in a stratified subsurface," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 340-348.
    17. 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.
    18. Ana Vieira & Maria Alberdi-Pagola & Paul Christodoulides & Saqib Javed & Fleur Loveridge & Frederic Nguyen & Francesco Cecinato & João Maranha & Georgios Florides & Iulia Prodan & Gust Van Lysebetten , 2017. "Characterisation of Ground Thermal and Thermo-Mechanical Behaviour for Shallow Geothermal Energy Applications," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-51, December.
    19. Li, Biao & Han, Zongwei & Bai, Chenguang & Hu, Honghao, 2019. "The influence of soil thermal properties on the operation performance on ground source heat pump system," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 903-913.
    20. Wilke, Sascha & Menberg, Kathrin & Steger, Hagen & Blum, Philipp, 2020. "Advanced thermal response tests: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).

    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:9:y:2017:i:3:p:356-:d:91784. 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.