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Underground soil and thermal conductivity materials based heat reduction for energy-efficient building
in tropical environment
M. R. Alam, M. F. M. Zain, A. B. M. A. Kaish and M. Jamil
Indoor and Built Environment published online 11 October 2013
DOI: 10.1177/1420326X13507591

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DOI: 10.1177/1420326X13507591
reduction for energy-efficient ibe.sagepub.com

building in tropical environment

M. R. Alam1, M. F. M. Zain2, A. B. M. A. Kaish3 and

M. Jamil2

Abstract
In this paper, an alternative way of releasing heat of building is investigated in order to reduce energy
demand of building built in tropical environment. Underground soil is considered as a source for
extracting heat from building through thermal conductivity pipes. Thermal conductivity pipes are con-
sidered to be fixed on the inner faces of the walls and their lower part to be inserted to the ground
where temperature is lower than the indoor temperature. The entire analyses were done numerically
using ANSYS 11. Heat flow between two systems was studied and the performance of the thermal
conductivity pipes was examined. The room temperature in the presence of thermal conductivity pipes
as well as mechanical cooling system and other passive energy-efficient techniques of building were
also studied. The underground soil was demonstrated to act as a heat sink and absorb heat released
from the rooms and the thermal conductivity pipes would play a role in transferring heat from the
rooms to the underground soil. The system works efficiently when it is used with other mechanical or
passive cooling systems. In this way, energy saving measure could be possible to reduce building
temperatures by around 3 C.

Keywords
Building, Heat flow, Thermal conductivity pipes, Underground soil, Mechanical cooling system
Accepted: 12 September 2013

Introduction
Rapid urbanization in developing countries is creating
enormous demand of energy in industrial, residential
and commercial sectors for fulfilling their functionality.
Therefore, energy crisis of these countries can be a great
threat in near future if they do not take any early ini-
tiative in optimizing the use of energy or to use other
alternatives of artificial energy or utilize natural energy
in different sectors of the city. Many countries in the
world are now trying to employ the solar, water, air and
geo energies in different sectors (industrial, commercial,
residential and so on) for saving man-made energy and
to develop safe and sustainable environment. From the
survey data of electricity consumption of Malaysia in
2007, it is seen that commercial and domestic sectors
consume 31.76% and 18.8%, respectively, of the total
1
Faculty of Engineering & Built Environment, The National
University of Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia and Dept. of Civil
Engineering, Chittagong University of Engineering &
Technology, Chittagong, Bangladesh
2
Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering & Built
Environment, The National University of Malaysia, Selangor,
Malaysia
3
Department of Civil & Structural Engineering, Faculty of
Engineering & Built Environment, The National University of
Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia
Corresponding authors:
M. R. Alam, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment,
The National University of Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia;
A. B. M. A. Kaish, Department of Civil & Structural
Engineering, Faculty of Engineering & Built Environment,
The National University of Malaysia, Bangi 43600, Selangor,
Malaysia.
Emails: arabiul07@yahoo.com; rabiul@eng.ukm.my;
amrul.cuet@gmail.com
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2 Indoor and Built Environment 0(0)

Figure 1. Malaysia climate graph.6

electricity consumption of this country.1 Most of the average sunlight hour are almost constant over the
electricity consumption is seen to be used for cooling year and other weather factors such as precipitation,
of buildings. relative humidity and wet day vary over the year. The
Energy-efficient building design is now a great chal- indoor thermal environment in building is strongly
lenge among engineers and architects, as well as other affected by the local climate. Buildings can be over-
researchers and scientists. Significant research studies heated during day time due to solar heat gain through
are being carried out regarding this issue in the recent the building envelope and solar penetration through
years. Passive cooling methods such as proper orienta- windows in tropical climates.7 Climatic and physical
tion of building, insulation of entire building envelope, factors such as precipitation, relative humidity, air pres-
appropriate window-to-wall ratio (WWR), double skin sure, cloudiness and wind are also important like air
fa&ades, high-performance glazing, complete shading temperature for thermal comfort of building.
from the direct sunlight, air tightness, plantation Therefore, comfort index is determined by the environ-
around the building and so on are taken into consider- mental parameters that influence thermal comforts such
ation in the present construction of commercial and as temperature, radiation, humidity and the wind
residential buildings around the world for making speed. Gut and Dieter8 mentioned that the main cli-
buildings energy efficient.2–4 matic factors affecting human comfort and relevant to
The general or average prevailing weather conditions construction are air temperature, its extremes and the
of a certain region, including temperature, air pressure, difference between day and night, and between summer
humidity, precipitation, cloudiness and winds, through- and winter; humidity and precipitation; incoming and
out the year, averaged over a series of years are defined outgoing radiation, the influence of the sky condition,
as climate.5 The condition of weather can vary from air movements and winds.
region to region. Climate graph of Kuala Lumpur, Underground soil can act as a passive cooling media
Malaysia is shown in Figure 1. From this graph, the for building built in tropical environment due to its
temperature (minimum, maximum and average) and much lower temperature than the ambient temperature
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Alam et al.
Figure 2. Outdoor temperature under mixed dipterocarp
forests of peninsular Malaysia for a typical day of July–
August 2006.14
of the building and can play a role in saving cooling
energy that requires for cooling of building in tropical
or hot region. Available literature related to the under-
ground soil temperature indicates that underground soil
temperature can vary from 8 C to 27 C in some parts of
the world especially in cold dominated areas (North
Americas) and 15 C to 25 C in tropical climate.9–11
Nassar et al.12 carried out research on the evaluation
of thermal properties of underground soil in Libya.
They conducted their study on soil temperature at a
depth of 4 m from the ground surface. They found aver-
age soil temperature of 21 C at this depth of under-
ground soil. Bansal et al.13 measured underground
soil temperature at the same depth (4 m) under the con-
dition of wetted soil covered by dry black soil with the
shaded surface over the year at New Delhi, India. They
found maximum soil temperature of 17.5 C, at that
depth of wetted soil. Outdoor temperature (shown in
Figure 2) under mixed dipterocarp forests of the penin-
sular of Malaysia for a typical day of July–August 2006
was determined by Nik et al.14 They mentioned that the
temperature of soil under forest cover is consistently
lower than that of the open air by 4–6 C due to shading
effect of forest cover. Cui et al.15 evaluated temperature
variation with depth of underground soil for a typical
day of tropical countries (see Figure 3). Therefore, the
underground soil temperature would always be less
than that of the ambient temperature of the building
if there is no effect of natural heat sources. Variation
of underground soil temperature is usually up to a
depth of 3 m; thereafter, it becomes constant.
However, it depends on several factors such as thermal
conductivity, density and specific heat, climate of sur-
rounding environment (meteorological conditions,
solar radiation intensity, wind speed, rain, humidity
and air temperature) and any natural heat sources
near the earth crust.
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Figure 3. Temperature variation of underground soil with
depth for typical days in Malaysia.15
Using the advantages of underground soil tempera-
ture in a case study of the cooltek house, Reimann
et al.16 evaluated ground cooling of ventilation air for
energy-efficient house in Malaysia. They analysed an
on-site measurement of the ground cooling air duct
system of the energy-efficient cooltek house in
Melaka, Malaysia. Indoor, outdoor and inside tem-
perature, humidity and CO2 content of the ground
cooling air duct were measured for two modes of oper-
ation such as fully passive mode where ventilation is
driven by the thermal pull of solar chimney and a
hybrid mode where a small fan assists the solar chimney
in ventilating the building. They mentioned that ground
cooling system of inlet air can help to increase the
energy efficiency of the house. Underground soil some-
time can also be used as heat sink for a modified air
conditioner. Geothermal energy is also being used in
the present days in other ways such as earth-air heat
exchanger, ground source heat pump, bore hole heat
exchanger, energy piles and ground absorbers in
Germany, the US and many other countries of the
world.17–19
Temperature distribution inside the building is not
constant during hot and cold time of day. It can vary
along vertically and horizontally inside of a room.
Simone and Rode20 measured vertical and horizontal
temperatures of the riso flexhouse room with different
heating control principles. They found that the vertical
temperature profile of the room showed notable tem-
perature gradients, especially at the occupied zone
when the solar gain is large, while otherwise the hori-
zontal temperature distribution is small. They mea-
sured vertical temperatures at 1 m away from the
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4 Indoor and Built Environment 0(0)

cement concrete (CC) construction of interior and

exterior walls. Hollow smaller sized aluminium pipes
were chosen as thermal conductivity media and these
were considered to be fixed (through screw connection
at some points) at an optimum horizontal spacing
(between two pipes) along the inner faces of the CC
walls. Optimum size, shape and spacing of thermal con-
ductivity pipes were obtained based on the range of
comfortable room temperature.
Since size and spacing of the thermal conductivity
pipes are correlated with each other (bigger sized pipe
would have more surface area, therefore, more heat can
be transferred by one pipe which can be placed at larger
horizontal spacing for the same amount of heat trans-
Figure 4. Vertical variation of temperature inside the ferred by smaller sized pipes with smaller horizontal
building room.23 spacing) it would need a lot of time to establish the
correlation between them. Therefore, numerical ana-
window at heights of 0.1 m, 0.6 m, 1.1 m and 1.7 m lysis of the entire domain was carried out only for
above the floor from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. of a day. They fixed size, shape and spacing of thermal conductivity
found 3–5 C vertical temperature variation in between pipes for obtaining the preliminary notion of the heat
11.30 a.m. and 2.00 p.m. Yasui et al.21 carried out study flow from the room of the building to the underground
on indoor thermal environment and vertical tempera- soil. Room layout with pipes configuration considered
ture gradient in a large workshop with polycarbonate in this study is shown in Figure 5. Temperature vari-
roofing of a school without air conditioning in summer ation was considered within the underground soil of
time. They found large variation of vertical tempera- depth up to 3 m (according to Figure 3, average tem-
ture inside the room. They found that indoor tempera- perature is considered for July 2010–September 2010).
ture would become high due to high solar radiation in Within this depth, temperatures would be considered to
summer and polycarbonate roofing system of the build- vary as 27 C, 24 C, 22 C and 20 C at depths of 0–1 m,
ing. Large vertical temperature gradient could also be 1–2 m, 2–3 m and >3 m, respectively. Thereafter, a con-
formed due to the same principles. Pollard et al.22 stant temperature of 20 C was assumed in higher depth
found vertical temperature variation inside the room, (>3 m) of underground soil. Outdoor temperature of
between 0.5 C and 1.5 C for solar radiation at about the building was considered as 30 C. Pipe temperature
1 p.m–3 p.m. Overby23 also found similar variation of was considered to be the same as the inside room tem-
vertical temperature inside a room (shown in Figure 4). perature and surrounding underground soil tempera-
In this study, a variation of interior room tempera- ture where it is installed. From the literature and
ture along the room height and variation of soil tem- Figure 4, it is seen that room temperature increases
perature up to a depth of 3 m was taken into vertically from floor to the ceiling along interior
consideration during numerical analysis of heat transfer (centre) of the room.20–23 Therefore, a vertical variation
problem of the entire system. Building (low rise) would of room temperature (27 C, 28 C and 29.5 C at floor
be considered to be made energy efficient by placing the level of 0 m, 1 m and 2.3 m above the floor, respectively)
high thermal conductivity materials (aluminium pipes) between room height of 0 m and 2.3 m was considered
along the inside face of the walls in the rooms of a in this study. The trend of this temperature variation
building by extending their lower part to the sufficient was obtained from the study of Overby.23 Overby car-
ground contact where temperature is lower than the ried out research on environment which was dominated
ambient room temperature. by moderate temperature. However, in this study,
investigation was performed for the tropical countries
Numerical analysis of heat-releasing such as Malaysia where temperatures can vary from
phenomena of building to the 26 C to 32 C during day time. Entire analysis was car-
ried out through the study of three different cases. In
underground soil the first case, heat flow was analysed between the ther-
Low rise one-room building was taken into consider- mal conductivity pipes and the underground soil. The
ation in numerical investigation of the heat flow same was analysed in a room of a building: without
through the high thermal conductivity pipes into the insulated CC wall, with insulated CC wall and thermal
underground soil. Building was considered to be con- conductivity pipe. In the third case, heat flow was ana-
structed by reinforced cement concrete material with lysed of a building room equipped with mechanical
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Alam et al. 5

Figure 5. Room layout with pipes configuration.

Table 1. Conductivity/convection properties of different modelling of room environment. Since ANSYS holds
materials.24 multiple options (specified heat flux, specified tempera-
ture, convective heat transfer, external radiation and
Conductivity
Name of material coefficient Film coefficient combine external radiation and external convective
heat transfer) to define thermal boundary conditions
(W/(m K)) (W/(m2 K)) in the model, different boundary condition options
Aluminium 205 – were taken into consideration for generating most sig-
Concrete 0.2 nificant thermal environment. Boundary conditions for
Soil 0.25 – all three cases are given in Table 2.
Wood 0.055
Air – 10.00 Case 1: numerical modelling of heat
flow between the thermal conduc-
tivity pipes and the underground soil
cooling system and thermal conductivity pipes. The This analysis was done to examine the role of thermal
entire heat flow analysis was considered as thermal con- conductivity pipes in cooling of the building. Since all
duction in the CC wall, aluminium pipes and under- pipes were assumed to be fixed with CC wall through
ground soil and free convection between the CC wall screw connection at some points on the wall and at
surfaces and the outdoor and indoor air of the building. equal horizontal interval and all pipes would experience
Conductivity/convection properties of different mater- the equal temperature, a single aluminium pipe with
ials are given in Table 1. Steady-state condition of heat underground soil was considered as a representative
flow into the system has been taken into consideration of interior environment of the room. Software
in this study. Indoor air humidity and air ventilation ANSYS 1125 (a mathematical software that uses
were not taken into consideration in numerical finite element method to solve two-dimensional and
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6 Indoor and Built Environment 0(0)

Table 2. Boundary conditions.

Case I
Outside surface of aluminium pipe and indoor air 0–1 m (27 C), 1–2.3 m (28 C), 2.3–3 m (29.5 C) (free
convection)
Underground soil temperature below the ground level 0–1 m (27 C), 1–2 m (24 C), 2–3 m (22 C) and >3 m
(20 C)
Temperature at the contact of pipes and underground Same as underground soil temperature
soil
Symmetry boundary conditions are applied on
symmetric plane (quarter symmetry problem)
Case II
Outside of CC wall and insulated CC wall and air 30 C (free convection)
Inner surface of CC wall with aluminium pipes and air 0–1 m (27 C), 1–2.3 m (28 C), 2.3–3 m (29.5 C) (free
convection)
Underground soil temperature below the ground level 0–1 m (27 C), 1–2 m (24 C), 2–3 m (22 C) and >3 m
(20 C)
Temperature at the contact of pipes and underground Same as underground soil temperature
soil
Case III
Outside surface of CC wall and air 30 C (free convection)
Heat flux removal from the inner face of CC wall For a temperature difference of 6 C (cooling set point
temperature 24 C)
Heat flux removal from the inner face of CC wall with For a temperature difference of 6 C (cooling set point
aluminium pipes temperature 24 C)
Underground soil temperature below the ground level 0–1 m (27 C), 1–2 m (24 C), 2–3 m (22 C) and >3 m
(20 C)
Temperature at the contact of pipes and underground Same as underground soil temperature
soil

three-dimensional (3D) heat transfer problems) was Variable temperatures of soil and pipes (27 C, 24 C,
used to model the entire domain (conductivity media 22 C and 20 C) at soil depth of 0–1 m, 1–2 m, 2–3 m
and underground soil) where heat flowed. Eight-noded and >3 m were defined in the model as constrained
linear thermal 3D solid elements (SOLID 70) with one temperatures. Pipe temperature at the contact of soil
degree of freedom at each node were used to discretize was considered to be the same as that of the soil tem-
the entire domain. Geometry of underground soil was perature of that location. Temperature of underground
considered as 3 m (length)  3 m (width)  3 m (depth). soil in the horizontal direction (away from the pipe)
Details of the domain are shown in Figure 5. A square should not vary much. It was assumed that temperature
cross-sectional hollow aluminium pipe (25.4  25.4 mm of underground soil at each and every point away from
outside dimension with thickness of 3 mm) was taken the pipes was the same. Boundary conditions of this
into consideration for the simplicity of the analysis. case are shown in Table 2.
Since temperature around the pipe (on four sides of
the pipes) was considered to be the same as air tem-
perature of the room and material and geometry of the Case II: numerical modelling of
pipe all through the pipe length are also the same, only combined effect of insulation on the
one-quarter of the pipe (quarter symmetry advantage) building envelope and the thermal
was taken into consideration in modelling. Piecewise
variable air convection along the height of the pipe
conductivity media
(shown in Figure 6) was applied on the exterior surface This section concerns modelling and analysis of the
of the pipe and was considered as thermal load of combined effects of insulating the building envelope
the pipe. Pipes were considered to be inserted into the and the thermal conductivity media in the cooling
depth of 3 m moist sandy soil during modelling of the system of the building. A CC wall of 127 mm thickness
domain and temperatures of the pipes and soil at dif- and 3  1.5 m of height and width, underground soil
ferent soil depths were assumed to be the same. and thermal conductivity media were modelled and
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Alam et al. 7

Figure 6. Temperature distribution around the pipe above and below the ground and also temperatures of underground soil.

analysed first for the outside temperature of the room
(due to sun radiation) and underground soil tempera-
ture. Thereafter, same domain was modelled and ana-
lysed with the consideration of 25 mm-thick wooden
insulation on the outer face of the CC wall. Wood
was chosen as insulation material due to its low thermal
conductivity (see Table 1) in comparison to other
materials used in this study, as well as it is locally avail-
able. Although, in the literature, wood is not an insu-
lation material, however, wood panels and wood fibres
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8 Indoor and Built Environment 0(0)

Figure 7. Finite element discretization of entire domain.

Figure 8. Finite element discretization at the junction of pipes, CC wall and underground soil.

insulation board are used widely as thermal/sound simulation of the highly variable conduction properties
insulation material26 due to their low cost as compared of dissimilar materials and accurate results of the entire
with other insulation materials such as polyurethane system. However, present consideration of the equal
panel. Wooden insulation system was considered to temperature concept would give minimum heat flow
be attached monolithically with the concrete wall and through the thermal conductivity pipe due to the max-
the interface temperature between these two dissimilar imum heat flow in the direction of the thickness of the
materials was considered to be the same. Modelling wooden insulation and CC wall. CC wall and insulation
using the interface elements would give the correct system were considered to be detached with the
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Alam et al.
Figure 9. Variation of temperature ( C) with the depth (metres) of pipe (single pipe and underground soil mass).
underground soil. Outside air temperature of the room
due to sun radiation was considered as 30 C and was
applied on the outer surface of the room wall (outer
surface of insulation in the case of insulated CC wall).
Square cross-sectional pipes spaced horizontally at
150 mm centre to centre were considered to be fixed
with the inside surface of the CC wall. Pipe temperature
and inside room temperature can vary little sensibly.
However, in this analysis, pipes’ temperature was
assumed to be the same as the inside air temperature
of the room. Here, 3 m-deep underground soil was
taken into consideration in this analysis and pipes
were considered to be inserted up to this depth of
soil. Element type (SOLID 70) that used in the previous
case was also used to discretize the entire domain in this
case. Boundary conditions for this part of analysis are
given in Table 2. Finite element discretization of the
entire domain is shown in Figure 7. All junctions of
pipes in the domain were meshed by smaller elements
and all other parts of the domain were meshed by com-
paratively bigger elements (see Figure 8).
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Case III: numerical modelling of
combined effect of mechanical
cooling system and the thermal
conductivity media
To determine the combined effect of mechanical cool-
ing system and the thermal conductivity pipes on the
cooling system of the building, two separate cooling
systems were studied. In the first cooling system, CC
wall (thickness: 0.125 m, height: 3 m and width: 1.5 m)
with mechanical cooling system was only simulated and
analysed for the outdoor air temperature and the cool-
ing set point temperature of the room and in the second
type, the same system was modelled and analysed in the
presence of underground soil and thermal conductivity
aluminium pipes. A chiller cooling system with a cool-
ing set point temperature of 24 C was considered as
mechanical cooling system in this study. This system
was incorporated into the model through removal of
heat flux from the inner face of the wall for a tempera-
ture difference of 6 C. Heat flux of these systems was
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10 Indoor and Built Environment 0(0)

Figure 10. Contour plot of temperature: (a) room with thermal conductivity pipes and CC wall without insulation and
(b) room with thermal conductivity pipes and CC wall with insulation.

calculated using the relationship of heat flux and tem- two cases were also applied in this case. Linear thermal
perature gradient (q ¼ k
T/d, where q ¼ heat flux, 3D solid (SOLID 70) elements were used to discretize
k ¼ thermal conductivity coefficient,
T ¼ temperature the entire domain for both types of cooling systems.
difference and d ¼ thickness of the media). Outdoor air Boundary conditions for this case are given in Table 2.
temperature due to sun radiation was considered as
30 C. Square cross-sectional pipes were considered to
Results and discussions
be fixed with the inner surface of the CC wall at a
horizontal spacing of 0.1524 m c/c between two pipes. ANSYS post-processor was used to determine the tem-
The assumptions, boundary conditions and discret- perature of the entire domain as well as its main parts
ization procedures that were applied in the previous such as CC wall and pipes. Variation of temperature
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Alam et al. 11

Figure 11. Variation of temperature with the depth of pipe: (a) room with thermal conductivity pipes and CC wall without
insulation and (b) room with thermal conductivity pipes and CC wall with insulation.

along the depth of the pipe is shown in Figure 9 for
room condition modelled without any insulation
system on the building envelopes and also without the
mechanical cooling system (case 1). The temperature
was shown to decrease with the depth of the thermal
conductivity pipes. The minimum temperature was
found at the region where soil temperature was con-
stant. The difference in temperature between top
and ground level heights of thermal conductivity pipe
was 2.8 C.
Contour plots of temperature and variation of tem-
perature for case II (thermal conductivity pipes and CC
wall with and without wooden insulation) are shown in
Figures 10(a) and (b) and 11(a) and (b), respectively.
From these figures, the temperature was shown to
decrease along the depth of the pipe for room with
wooden insulation by 0.83 C more than those obtained
in the pipes without wooden insulation.
Contour plot of temperature of the room wall is
shown in Figure 12 for the room condition modelled
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12 Indoor and Built Environment 0(0)

Figure 12. Contour plot of temperature ( C) of CC wall with mechanical cooling system alone.

Figure 13. Variation of temperature ( C) with the depth (inch) of pipe (CC wall with thermal conductivity pipes and
mechanical cooling system).
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Alam et al. 13

Figure 14. Temperature ( C) distribution (transverse direction) along the interior side of the wall: (a) CC wall with only
thermal conductivity pipes and (b) CC wall with thermal conductivity pipes and mechanical cooling system.

with only the mechanical cooling system. A variation of
room temperature was shown to develop between inner
and outer surfaces of the CC wall and the temperature
was shown to vary along the height of the wall.
Variation of temperature along the depth of the pipe
is shown in Figure 13 for room condition modelled with
thermal conductivity pipes and mechanical cooling
system. From this figure, temperature was shown to
decrease with the depth of the pipe and along the
inner surface of the wall. The room temperature at
the inner surface of the wall for this case was lower
than those obtained for room condition modelled
with mechanical cooling system alone (maximum tem-
perature on the inner surface of the CC wall with ther-
mal conductivity pipes and mechanical cooling system
was 23.1 C. On the other hand, the inner surface tem-
perature of the wall was 24 C (from Figure 12) for CC
wall with mechanical cooling system.). Because offixing
of thermal conductivity pipes to the inner surface of the
room wall in combination with mechanical cooling
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Figure 15. Vector plot of heat flux (single pipe and underground soil mass).

Figure 16. Variation of heat flux (KJ/m2) with the depth of pipe (single pipe and soil mass).
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Alam et al.
system, room temperature was reduced by 1.7 C (aver-
age value of temperature difference in the pipe at the
top (0 m depth  1.6 C, at 1.15 m depth – 0.9 C) and
ground level (3 m – 2.68 C)). Transverse temperature
distribution along the width of the room wall is
shown in Figure 14(a) and (b) for CC wall with thermal
conductivity pipes (first part of case II) and the same
with mechanical cooling system. The pipe temperature
was shown to be lower than the exterior wall tempera-
ture with the room condition modelled using thermal
conductivity pipe alone. In the case of room condition
modelled with thermal conductivity pipes and mechan-
ical cooling system together, the thermal conductivity
of the pipe temperature was lower than that of the tem-
perature of the inner surface of CC wall. This indicates
that heat was flowing to the underground soil through
the thermal conductivity pipes.
Heat flux is the parameter that determines the heat
flow per unit area of the body. Therefore, heat flux of
the proposed cooling system was also determined at
different locations of the entire domain. Heat flux
vector plot along the pipe and underground soil mass
(case I) is shown in Figure 15. From this figure, heat
was shown to flow from a higher temperature zone to
the lower temperature zone. When heat flows from a
higher temperature zone to a lower temperature zone,
higher temperature zone would start to release heat and
subsequently room temperature would decrease. Heat
flux variation along the depth of the pipe for single pipe
and underground soil mass system is shown in Figure
16. From this figure, heat flux value reached a max-
imum in the soil region where temperature started to
vary (from top of the underground soil to a depth of
0.9 m inside the underground soil media).
When mechanical cooling system and thermal con-
ductivity pipes were considered together in cooling
system of the building room, heat flux variation was
obtained much less than those obtained from the
room condition modelled with thermal conductivity
pipes alone. In this case, significant temperature drop
inside the room was obtained (Figure 13).
The temperature drop obtained from the study of
case I should be less than those obtained from case
II, where CC wall with or without insulation and ther-
mal conductivity pipes are considered in the construc-
tion of building’s room. However, temperature drop for
case II (1.9 C) was obtained less than those obtained
for case I (2.8 C). The reasons could be the modelling
of single pipe as a representative of entire room envir-
onment for case I and the application of the crude
assumption (same temperature at the junction of two
highly variable dissimilar thermal conductivity proper-
ties of two different materials) in the modelling of the
interface between the wooden insulation and the CC
wall. If it is modelled by considering interface elements
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with the interface properties better results can be
obtained. For case II, CC wall (with or without insu-
lated) and number of pipes can also act together and
shears heat flow between each other.
Conclusion
From the numerical study carried out on heat transfer
problem of different systems required for cooling resi-
dential/commercial low rise building, the inside room
temperature of the building could be reduced if rooms
were constructed with high thermal conductivity media
(pipes) embedded to the underground soil where
temperature would remain constant and less than the
ambient room temperature. From the analysis, the
square-shaped aluminium pipes are very effective in
transferring heat from the interior of the room to the
underground soil and underground soil would act as a
cooling reservoir for the building built in tropical envir-
onment. A temperature drop of 2.8 C between top and
ground level heights of the square-shaped thermal con-
ductivity pipes was found in this study. Heat flux was
obtained more at a depth of 0.3 m of the underground
soil and its direction was obtained downwards. This
result gives an indication of heat flow through the
pipes from inside of the room to the underground
soil. When the entire system was analysed with the con-
sideration of thermal conductivity pipes and wooden
insulated CC wall together, room temperature was
obtained lower than the individual case of operation
of building. When the thermal conductivity pipes are
considered to be added to the mechanical cooling
system of the building, higher cooling set point tem-
perature could be fixed for the cooling of the room of
the building as conductivity pipes share transfer of heat
from room to the underground soil. If insulation of
building envelope, thermal conductivity pipes and
mechanical cooling system are incorporated together,
higher cooling set point of mechanical cooling system
can make building room comfortable and the energy
required to keep the building cool through mechanical
cooling can be less.
Acknowledgements
This study was finanacially supported bythe Faculty of
Engineering & Built Environment, National University of
Malaysia (UKM), Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia.
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