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Renewable Energy
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a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: Several models are available in literature to simulate ground heat exchangers. In this paper an approach
Received 2 June 2009 based on electrical analogy is presented, for this reason named CaRM (CApacity Resistance Model). In
Accepted 18 November 2009 some cases several information are needed during design: both the borehole and the surrounding
Available online 4 December 2009
ground are affected by thermal exchange. The model here presented allows to consider the fluid flow
pattern along the classical vertical ground heat exchangers as a single U-tube, a double U-tube or
Keywords:
coaxial pipes. Besides, ground temperature at different distances from borehole are calculated, taking
Ground heat pump systems
into account also the thermal interference between more boreholes. Starting from the supply
Low enthalpy geothermal systems
Vertical ground heat exchangers temperature to the heat exchanger, the outlet fluid temperature is calculated and the ground
Ground numerical simulation temperature in each node, step by step. The model has been validated by means of a commercial
Borehole software based on the finite differences method. Further comparisons have been carried out against
Borefield data from a ground thermal response test and from the survey of an office building equipped with
a ground coupled heat pump and vertical double U-tube heat exchangers. The agreement of results
validates the model here presented.
Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction In the last decades, several design tools have been developed to
simulate ground heat exchangers. The basic ones rest on some
Energy saving and emissions reduction require to improve the analytical solutions for line source [1] and cylindrical source [2].
energy efficiency of systems. For this purpose, the renewable Using these approaches, Kavanaugh and Rafferty [3] proposed
energy technology is in continuous development. Heat pumps for a method to design vertical ground heat exchangers; in their solu-
space heating and cooling are an interesting example. To improve tion, two equations are given for calculating the required length in
their performances, namely the COP (Coefficient of Performance) or heating and in cooling mode, respectively, taking into account also
EER (Energy Efficiency Ratio), low temperature in heating and high the effect of thermal interference between adjacent boreholes by
temperature in cooling operation are required. On the other hand means of a ‘‘ground penalty temperature’’. Another approach is
a suitable source or sink temperature is necessary. Frequently, presented by Eskilson [4] who calculated the borehole wall
external air is used but in this case the energy performance is temperature making use of transient finite difference method; he
affected by climatic variations. If available and allowed, ground proposed dimensionless parameters, so-called g-functions, to
water is optimal, thanks to its constant temperature condition. describe the performance of a borehole in homogenous ground. Each
Another possibility is to use the ground as a heat source or sink, borehole field configuration is represented by the corresponding
since its temperature is almost constant all over the year, thus g-functions. Eskilson’s model was implemented into the simulation
allowing smaller temperature variations than external air during tools EED [5] and GLHEPRO [6,7], where several configurations of
both heating and cooling season. The coupling with the ground can bore field are considered: starting from monthly heating and cooling
be attained by means of closed loops, and needs special design loads and monthly peak heating and cooling demands, simulation
attention. over a number of years is feasible. GLHEPRO includes also a heat
pump model that allows the user to enter loads on the heat pump
rather than loads on the ground.
Hellström [8] combined analytical and numerical methods
based on the line source concept for a composite region to calculate
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ39 049 827 6871; fax: þ39 049 827 6896. the borehole thermal resistance and used the solution for cylin-
E-mail address: angelo.zarrella@unipd.it (A. Zarrella). drical source outlined by Carslaw and Jaeger [2] to determine the
0960-1481/$ – see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.renene.2009.11.034
1538 M. De Carli et al. / Renewable Energy 35 (2010) 1537–1550
thermal resistance between borehole wall and the surrounding In this paper a model developed by the authors is presented. It is
ground. based on the electrical analogy, making use of lumped capacities
These models are often not suitable to analyse the borehole and thermal resistances.
short time behaviour. For example, in his model Eskilson [4]
proposed to apply no variations of the heat extraction–injection
rate on a time-scale below the following limit: 2. Mathematical model
s ¼ 5 rb2 =ag (1) According to Fourier’s law, the general heat conduction equation
with no internal heat generation is:
For a borehole in typical applications this time step might lie
between 2 and 6 h. In many cases, this may be not important since vT
the time of interest is in the order of months or even years. In some ¼ a,V2 T (2)
vs
applications, short time simulations of ground coupled systems are
where a ¼ l=ðcp ,rÞ is the thermal diffusivity of the material. For
needed for a more accurate model dealing with small time intervals
a solid without heat storage capacity, homogeneous and with
(e.g., hourly intermittent operation). Yavuzturk and Spitler [9]
analysed this problem and they solved the numerical heat diffusion
problem in the ground taking into account the heat capacity of the
pipe and the grout; their numerical results were expressed in term
of short-time g-functions. Sutton et al. [10] and Young [11] proposed
some solutions for this problem.
Based on the infinite line source model, Zeng et al. [12] derived
an analytical solution of the transient temperature response in
a semi-infinite medium with a finite line source taking into account
the axial effects. Over this approach Lamarche and Beauchamp
[13,14] presented a new analytical method to solve the exact
solution for concentric cylinders with a good approximation for the
U-tube configuration for long and short time analyses. Some
authors extended the finite line source model for considering also
inclined borehole [15,16].
Another different approach is to use three-dimensional finite
volumes models, which may require high computational time,
due to complexity of equations used and high number of
elements. Fig. 1. Conduction heat transfer principle.
M. De Carli et al. / Renewable Energy 35 (2010) 1537–1550 1539
constant properties, the heat flux from surface 1 to surface 2 at 2.1. Ground modelling
temperatures T1 and T2, respectively (Fig. 1), can be written via the
thermal resistance between surfaces 1 and 2 (R12) in this way: In the model here presented, the heat transfer within the ground
takes place solely by heat conduction. Another heat transfer
T1 T2 contribution can be brought about by ground water movement due
q ¼ (3)
R12 to convection: there may be both regional flow, caused by hydraulic
A typical steady state problem is the heat conduction through gradients at the site, and natural convection induced by the
increased temperatures in the storage region [8].
a circular pipe wall, which can be solved by the well-known
formula: The thick layer between heat exchanger and borehole wall is
usually filled with an appropriate material to improve the thermal
1 r2 contact between the fluid and the ground. The thermal conductivity
R12 ¼ ,ln (4) of the borehole backfill material is critical because of the relatively
2p,L,l r1
high heat flux rates that normally occur near the U-tube [3]. The
where L is the length of the cylinder, l is the thermal conductivity of thermal capacity of the grout is small if compared to the thermal
the pipe material, r1 and r2 are the inner and the outer pipe radius, capacity of the ground, for this reason it is considered negligible; this
respectively. hypothesis is considered also in other models [4]. The thermal
By means of Eq. (3) the thermal resistance R can be calculated capacity of the borehole is important when the simulation time step
also when its analytic equation is not known. In fact, it is sufficient is relatively short with reference to the time dependence of the heat
to know the heat flux q and the temperature at surfaces 1 and 2 (or flux.
the temperature difference) to determine R by solving Eq. (3). The ground is composed of several subregions, each of them
If the body can store heat, neglecting temperature gradients characterized by different thermophysical properties, assumed
within the solid, the heat flux q exchanged at its surface is related to independent of time, mainly determined by mineral composition,
the rate of change of the internal energy: porosity content and degree of water saturation. Usually they are
considered altogether in the so-called equivalent thermal conduc-
dT tivity of the ground system [17–20] which can be determined by
q ¼ r,c,V, (5)
ds a ‘‘thermal response test’’ (TRT).
where r c V is the heat capacity of the body. To discretize the heat Usually the part of the ground close to outside air is affected by
conduction differential equation, the control volume approach can weather conditions changes. The disturbance due to air temperature
be used. Referring to Fig. 2, by applying the energy balance to the penetrates to a depth of some meters and, considering that usually
control volume of the i-th node, Eq. (5) can be written as: borehole length is close to hundred meters, its influence may be
considered negligible; on the other hand, if the borehole length is
dTðiÞ limited (50 m or less) the axial effects cannot be ignored. In this
qði 1; iÞ þ qði; i þ 1Þ ¼ rðiÞ,cðiÞ,VðiÞ, (6)
ds model, the heat flux between the fluid inside the first part of the
In terms of finite time steps Ds, Eq. (6) becomes: borehole near the ground surface level and the outside air is not
considered: other models, as EED [5] and GLHEPRO [7], consider the
Tði1ÞTðiÞ Tðiþ1ÞTðiÞ rðiÞ,cðiÞ,VðiÞ annual mean temperature as boundary condition at the ground
þ ¼ TðiÞTðiÞDs (7) surface. Also heat transfer between the fluid inside the lowest part
Rði1; iÞ Rði; iþ1Þ Ds
of borehole and the ground underneath its end is not considered:
where R is the thermal resistance between the nodes and T(i)Ds is this should be dealt with as a 3-D problem.
the temperature of the i-th element at the previous time step. By A maximum radius rmax, from the borehole axis, has to be fixed
the application of this analysis one can calculate the temperature at (Fig. 3a). At a distance r > rmax, from the borehole axis, the temper-
any point, at any time, within the given body. ature is considered equal to the undisturbed ground temperature Tg.
The value of this maximum radius rmax is related to the ground
thermal diffusivity and to the overall time of operation or simulation.
For a heating and/or cooling system, it could be determined
according to the line source solution [1], considering the heat flux
and the time span of simulation: the yearly net average heat rate
exchanged with the ground and a time period of ten years can be
used [3]. However, the heat is normally diffused at distances of
8–10 m regardless of ground water movement [3]; on the other
hand, the water movement allows the stored heat to be transferred
away from the borehole field.
The model allows to consider different compositions of soil
(subregions), each of them with a given undisturbed ground
temperature; in this way it is possible to consider a vertical profile of
temperature, which can be relevant for geothermal sites. These
values of undisturbed ground temperatures are assumed indepen-
dent of time.
The model takes into account three different types of ground
heat exchangers, which are the most used: single U-tube, double
U-tube, coaxial pipes.
For modelling purposes, the ground surrounding the borehole is
divided into m overlapped slices, as it can be seen in Fig. 3b. The
borehole is divided into m slices as well. Heat transfer in vertical
Fig. 2. Control volume for one dimensional conduction. direction between two overlapped slices is not taken into account
1540 M. De Carli et al. / Renewable Energy 35 (2010) 1537–1550
a b c
(only heat flux along the radial direction is considered). Therefore Tðj;n 1Þ Tðj;nÞ Tg ðjÞ Tðj;nÞ Tðj;nÞ TDs ðj;nÞ
the temperature within any annular region is assumed to depend
þ ¼ Cðj;nÞ, (9)
Rðj;n 1Þ Rðj;nÞ Ds
on radius and time. The cylindrical symmetry around the single
vertical borehole is assumed: local disturbances due to the position
where, referring to the i-th annular region and to the j-th slice: C(j, i)
of the pipes in the borehole are neglected.
is the thermal capacity, R(j, i) is the thermal resistance between two
Each slice is consequently divided in n annular regions at
adjacent annular regions, T(j, i) is the current mean temperature,
different distances from the axis of the borehole (Fig. 3b and c).
TDs(j, i) is the mean temperature at the previous time step, Tg(j) is
Under this hypothesis, for the generic j-th ground layer the
the undisturbed ground temperature.
following equation can be written for the i-th (i ¼ 1, ., n-1) annular
To calculate the heat capacity the following equation is used:
region (Fig. 4):
h i
Tðj;i1ÞTðj;iÞ Tðj;iþ1ÞTðj;iÞ Tðj;iÞTDs ðj;iÞ Cðj; iÞ ¼ r,c,p, r 2 ðiÞ rði 1Þ2 ,DzðjÞ (10)
þ ¼ Cðj;iÞ, (8)
Rðj;i1Þ Rðj;iÞ Ds
where, in reference to the annular region, r(i) and r(i 1) are the
while for the last annular region (i ¼ n), taking into account the radii, r and c are the density and the specific heat of the ground
boundary condition of the undisturbed ground temperature for the layer, respectively. The thermal capacity of the i-th annular region is
ground layer, the equation is: lumped at barycentric radius rm(i) which is equivalent to:
Configuration Tw2 ðjÞ Tp;2 ðjÞ Tp;1 ðjÞ Tp;2 ðjÞ T0 ðjÞ Tp;2 ðjÞ
þ þ ¼ 0 (14)
Rconv ðjÞ Rpp ðjÞ Rp0 ðjÞ
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Tw1 ðjÞTp;1 ðjÞ Tp;3 ðjÞTp;1 ðjÞ Tp;2 ðjÞTp;1 ðjÞ Tp;4 ðjÞTp;1 ðjÞ
rm ðiÞ ¼ r 2 ðiÞ þ r 2 ði 1Þ = 2 (11) þ þ þ
Rconv ðjÞ RppA ðjÞ RppB ðjÞ RppA ðjÞ
The values of the thermal resistances R(j, i) are calculated by Eq. T0 ðjÞTp;1 ðjÞ
(4), making use of Eq. (11). þ ¼0 (16)
Rp0 ðjÞ
a b c
where D is the pipe inside diameter and L is the length of the pipe. while for the fluid in pipe 2:
Table 2 For coaxial pipes in case pipe 1 supplied and pipe 2 returned:
Coefficients for evaluating the effective thermal resistances and capacities.
d 1
cosðbÞ ¼ , (41)
Table 3 2 rm ðiÞ
Input data for the sensitivity analysis.
Description Value
Undisturbed ground temperature [ C] 13.3 Table 4
Thermal conductivity of the pipe [W/(m K)] 0.4 Influence of the parameter m (number of vertical subdivisions of the ground).
Outside diameter of pipe [mm] 32
Time step 350 h 700 h 1050 h
Inside diameter of pipe [mm] 26
simulation [h]
Borehole diameter [mm] 120
Length [m] 120 m layers T out q0 T out q0 T out q0
Thermal conductivity of the grout [W/(m K)] 2 [ C] [W/m] [ C] [W/m] [ C] [W/m]
Maximum radius rmax [m] 10 120 3.411 31.47 3.319 29.42 3.270 28.33
Total water flow rate [kg/s] 0.64 60 3.410 31.45 3.319 29.42 3.269 28.30
Connection Parallel 30 3.409 31.43 3.318 29.40 3.269 28.30
Inlet fluid temperature [ C] 2 15 3.408 31.40 3.317 29.37 3.267 28.26
Ground 6 3.403 31.29 3.313 29.29 3.264 28.19
Thermal conductivity [W/(m K)] 2 3 3.396 31.14 3.306 29.13 3.257 28.04
Thermal capacity [MJ/(m3 K)] 2.1
The number of annular regions is 10 and rmax is 10 m.
M. De Carli et al. / Renewable Energy 35 (2010) 1537–1550 1545
Table 6
Comparison of temperatures [ C] in the ground between HEAT2 and CaRM.
Time step simulation 0.060 0.527 1.059 1.980 2.941 3.570 4.325 5.231 6.318 7.623
[h]
600 HEAT2 7.8 11.2 12.0 12.6 12.9 12.9 12.9 13.0 13.0 13.0
CaRM 7.8 11.2 12.1 12.7 12.9 12.9 12.9 12.9 13.0 13.0
800 HEAT2 10.6 11.1 11.8 12.5 12.8 12.9 12.9 12.9 13.0 13.0
CaRM 10.6 11.2 11.9 12.6 12.8 12.9 12.9 12.9 13.0 13.0
1000 HEAT2 7.4 11.4 11.8 12.4 12.7 12.8 12.9 12.9 13.0 13.0
CaRM 7.4 11.4 11.9 12.5 12.7 12.8 12.9 12.9 13.0 13.0
1546 M. De Carli et al. / Renewable Energy 35 (2010) 1537–1550
Table 7 (Fig. 9). Using the slope k of this linear equation and the constant
Characteristics of ground heat exchanger. power rate per unit length (q0 ), thermal conductivity can be calcu-
Type double U-tube lated by relationship Eq. (43).
(high density polyethylene)
Thermal conductivity of pipe [W/(m K)] 0.4 q0
lground ¼ (43)
Outside diameter of pipe [mm] 32 4pk
Inside diameter of pipe [mm] 26
Borehole diameter [mm] 140 The fluid used during the test was water with a flow rate of
Length [m] 100 0.31 kg/s. As a result of the test, the undisturbed ground tempera-
Filling material Mixture of bentonite and quartzite ture was 15.7 C and the equivalent thermal conductivity was
Connection Parallel
1.75 W/(m K).
In test conditions, assuming for soil thermal capacity the value
site of an office building under renovation in Mestre–Venice (Italy), of 2.4 MJ/(m3 K) (equivalent to a combination of layers of clay and
has been used. The HVAC system consists of ceiling radiant panels sand), also the thermal resistance of borehole Rb was evaluated
and primary air. The design required power is 100 kW in heating according to the line source approach; its value was 0.08 m K/W.
and 120 kW in cooling. The new plant consists of a heat pump Making use of the data from the response test, the inlet fluid
coupled with the ground by a closed loop of vertical double U-tube temperature has been used as input for CaRM and the outlet
heat exchangers. The boreholes are in number of 30 for a depth of temperature of the simulation tool has been compared with the
100 m; all boreholes and the two U-tubes are coupled in parallel measured value. For this purpose, 20 layers, each one of 5 m in
with the same inlet temperature. In Table 7 the characteristics of depth, have been considered; maximum radius has been set to 10 m
the heat exchanger are reported. and 20 annular regions from the axis of borehole, with an expansion
To evaluate the equivalent thermal conductivity and the undis- factor of 1.2, have been taken. The expansion factor is the ratio
turbed temperature of the ground, a thermal response test has been between the thickness of the considered annular region and the
carried out. Indeed the ground thermal properties can be estimated previous one. In the CaRM simulation the case of a borehole in free
by resorting to available literature values, but the range of possible field (type ‘‘0’’ of Fig. 7) has been used. Time step of simulation has
values for a specific soil type is very wide. A more accurate method is been set to 600 s.
therefore to make use of a thermal response test [17–20]. Since the model needs also the thermal resistances between
In this case, the test has been done in cooling mode (on building pipes (RppA and RppB in Fig. 5b) inside the borehole, these values have
side), therefore the system makes use of an electrical resistance been calculated (in steady state) by a simulation tool based on finite
only heating the water supplied to the borehole (Fig. 8); if instead of elements [29], considering symmetrically placed pipes: their values
electrical resistance a heat pump is used, both heat extraction as are 0.6 (m K)/W and 2.5 (m K)/W for RppA and RppB, respectively; for
well as heat injection experiments are possible [28] but with this this purpose the thermal conductivity of the grout has been set to
last method the stability control of the input power involves much 1.75 W/(m K) so as to tie in with the measurement results. Outputs
more attention. The fluid moves through the heater and the inlet are not much affected by these thermal resistances, since the fluid
and the outlet temperatures are recorded by a data-logger (Fig. 8b). temperature difference between the channels is low: in this case,
To determine the undisturbed ground temperature the fluid was fluid temperature difference between inlet and outlet at borehole is
initially circulated through the system without heat injection. The 3 C. Much more important is the thermal resistance Rp0 (Fig. 5b).
mean fluid temperature along the piping was recorded, and this For this reason, the value of the thermal resistance between pipes
one corresponds to the temperature of the undisturbed ground and borehole wall has been set using the value of Rb via measure-
[20]. In this procedure it is necessary to pay attention to the ments, decreased by convective thermal resistance between carrier
disturbance of the circulation pump because its heat can appre- fluid and pipe, since this is considered in a separate way; in any case
ciably increase the fluid temperature. if the flow is not laminar, the thermal resistance due to convection
When the heater was switched on, the power injected into the has small influence. In test conditions the Reynolds number is 5428,
ground per unit length was set to 36 W/m, close to the design rate. consequently falling in transition zone; it follows that the convective
The time span of test was four days. By continuous line source heat transfer coefficient is 1052 W/(m2 K). The Rb is the equivalent
model, which releases a constant heat flux per unit time, the eval- thermal resistance of the circuit of the ground heat exchanger with
uation of the equivalent thermal conductivity of soil is possible. The four symmetrical heat transfer channels (Rb Rconv/4 ¼ Rp0/4); for
mean fluid temperature (between supply and return) is plotted this reason the value of Rp0 has been set to 0.32 (m K)/W (its value
against natural logarithm of time and a linear relation is yielded via finite elements is 0.35 (m K)/W).
b Fig. 11. Vertical fluid and borehole wall temperature after two and four simulated days.
are taken into account if the energy need of the building will
increase in future. The hydraulic coupling between the boreholes is
in parallel. The overall system takes into account a supplementary
heater; this choice has been taken for avoiding the use of anti-
freezing in the ground circuit, thus the water flowing in the ground
has a fixed minimum allowed temperature of about 4 C. The heat
pump, equipped with electronic throttling valve, has been specifi-
cally designed to work at two different temperature levels (on the
building side): in cooling conditions 5 C during day-time (for air
handling) and 15 C during night-time, due to TABS (Thermal Active
Building Systems); in heating conditions 35 C during both the day
and the night. In this way the COP of heat pump, depending on the
Fig. 9. Thermal response test: measurements (a) and processing (b). temperature of the water coming from ground heat exchanger, may
vary from 3.5 to 5.5 during the day and from 4.4 to 6.9 during the
night in summer period and from 3.7 to 4.7 in heating conditions.
The outlet temperature of simulation and the measured value
Soil properties of the area are reported in Table 8, based on
are reported in Fig. 10; the relative error on the temperature
geological analysis and on thermal properties of the ground
difference between inlet and outlet, simulated and measured, is
obtained from literature data. In this case no ground response test
11%. In Fig. 11 the vertical temperature profile of the fluid in the
was done. No significant aquifer movement is reported in that area
pipes and of the borehole wall obtained with CaRM after two and
within the proposed borehole depth. The undisturbed ground
four simulated days are shown.
temperature is 13.3 C (evaluated as yearly average external air
temperature). Pipes of double U-tube have an external diameter of
4.2. Measurements over long period 32 mm and the water flow rate is 0.32 kg/s for each borehole.
Energy flow in the ground has been measured every 5 min and it
The system which has been measured is a heated and cooled considers both the vertical boreholes as well as the horizontal loop
office building located in Padua (Italy) (Fig. 12). The ground coupled coupling to the heat pump. Measurements have been carried out
system consists of a heat pump (nominal power of 80 kW) for both from the end of May to end of July, at the beginning of operation of
heating and cooling, 16 boreholes (95 m in depth and 7 m of the building. For considering the effect of the horizontal piping,
spacing) with L shape distribution (Fig. 13); supplemental boreholes which in this case is not negligible, simulations with HEAT2 have
Fig. 10. Comparison of outlet temperature between measurements and simulation. Fig. 12. Building used for long period evaluation.
1548 M. De Carli et al. / Renewable Energy 35 (2010) 1537–1550
been carried out. The outdoor conditions on the ground have been measured values is 0.35 C. This value is not ascribable to the
imposed in terms of sol–air temperature (both temperature and uncertainties of the measurements so it is to be explained otherwise.
radiation have been measured). This contribution has been sub- The first possible reason of this difference could be an over-
tracted from the measured values, thus estimating the temperature estimated undisturbed ground temperature. In the first step of
of supply and return water at the boreholes. The supply tempera- simulation at each node of the mesh the undisturbed ground
ture determined in this way has been set as input for CaRM. The temperature is assigned, besides this value is used as boundary
heat exchange calculated has been then compared to measured condition at radius rmax. The ground is disturbed by drilling opera-
energy minus contribution of horizontal piping. In Figs. 14 and 15 tion; this may result in a heating and a wetting or drying depending
comparison between experimental and calculated data are shown on drilling techniques [20]. A convenient time period has to elapse
during the whole period and in one day in July, respectively. between the end of the borehole boring and the start of thermal test
Looking at the overall period of investigation, measured energy so that the ground returns to an undisturbed state. In this case
released into the ground has been 738 MWh, while with the model drilling with pressurised fluid was done and only ten days were
the calculated value has resulted in 764 MWh, i.e., 3.6% error. In elapsed since boring; for this reason the undisturbed ground
Fig. 14 some peaks can be observed, especially in the first period of temperature could be overestimated.
operation. These values are due to non-perfect operation of the The second possible reason lies probably in the evaluation of
heat pump and on–off operations due to testing. thermal resistances inside the borehole. Here the thermal capacity is
neglected and steady state equations are considered: only thermal
resistances are used to take into account the thermal short circuit
5. Discussion
The good agreement between CaRM results and HEAT2 bears out
the correct simulation of heat conduction into the ground. On the
other hand, the comparison with the ground response test shows
that the model reproduces the return temperature from borehole
with a slight shift. The average difference between simulated and
Table 8
Characteristics of the ground considered.
6. Conclusions
Fig. 16. Vertical total fluid heat flux. (Parameters used in the simulation are the same A model to simulate the thermal behaviour of vertical ground
of the case of TRT, with exception of thermal power and mass fluid rate). heat exchangers has been developed. It makes use of the electrical
1550 M. De Carli et al. / Renewable Energy 35 (2010) 1537–1550
analogy with lumped capacities and thermal resistances to solve the [11] Young TR. Development, verification, and design analysis of the borehole fluid
thermal mass model for approximating short term borehole thermal response.
heat transfer in unsteady state. The model, called CaRM (CApacity
Master’s thesis, Oklahoma State University, USA, 2001.
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