Assessment of an earth-air heat exchanger (EAHE) system for residential buildings in warm-summer Mediterranean climate

Rosa, N.; Soares, N.; Costa, J.J.; Santos, Paulo; Gervásio, Helena

doi:10.1016/j.seta.2020.100649

Cited by 38 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…However, near surfaces, around edges and at the supply and exhaust units, the Reynolds number was high enough to transit into the turbulent region. Following previous CFD studies, 22,23,25,26 a k-E turbulence model, together with an energy equation, was used.…”

Section: Numerical Simulation Setupmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…25 The transition into the turbulent regions requires the use of turbulence models. Rosa et al 26 pointed out that the k-e turbulence model has been widely used and has been proven to serve well for these types of problems. [27][28][29] There are also other turbulence models which have been used, such as the SST k-x turbulence model, when investigating the thermal climate inside a building.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Indoor thermal climate after energy efficiency measures of a residential building in a sub-Arctic region: Comparing ANSYS CFX and IDA ICE methods

Lundqvist

Risberg

Westerlund

2021

Indoor and Built Environment

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A residential building which had been subjected to an energy efficiency measures study had its indoor thermal climate investigated using two software approaches to understand how each approach would predict the outcome, using the predicted percentage of dissatisfied (PPD). The computational fluid dynamics software (ANSYS CFX) and the building performance simulation (BPS) software (IDA ICE) were used to simulate the indoor thermal climate before and after the measures. The measures included additional insulation and changing the ventilation system. The results showed a difference in how the software packages handled the thermal radiation. The difference was also because CFX could calculate the indoor thermal climate of the whole interior. While the PPD values could remain similar between the CFX solutions, the area with dissatisfaction in the apartment was decreased when the building envelope was improved. These changes gave an improvement for the CFX solutions, which was not possible to predict with IDA ICE because only the central node was visible. The user should be aware of the shortcomings of BPS and building energy simulation software when evaluating the indoor thermal climate to predict changes. A coupling between BPS and CFX software should be considered when new measures or significant changes are planned.

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Section: Numerical Simulation Setupmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Indoor thermal climate after energy efficiency measures of a residential building in a sub-Arctic region: Comparing ANSYS CFX and IDA ICE methods

Lundqvist

Risberg

Westerlund

2021

Indoor and Built Environment

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…They also found that the optimal burying depth for the city of Rubiana (Turin-Italy) is around 2.5 to 3 m. 36 Rosa et al studied parameters affecting the earth-toair heat exchanger. 37 It has been shown that pipe diameter and air velocity are the most significant parameters influencing the performance of the EAHE. It can be concluded that airflow velocity is a crucial parameter on the performance of the EAHE and an appropriate control scheme must be applied.…”

Section: Earth To Air Heat Exchangermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rosa et al studied parameters affecting the earth‐to‐air heat exchanger 37 . It has been shown that pipe diameter and air velocity are the most significant parameters influencing the performance of the EAHE.…”

Section: Related Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

New passive thermal comfort system using three renewable energies: Wind catcher, solar chimney and earth to air heat exchanger integrated to real‐scale test room in arid region (Experimental study)

et al. 2020

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Summary Thermal comfort is one of the ancient‐new challenges of the arid region population and responsible for more than 40% of energy end‐use. Renewable energy can be a solution to this problem. In the present paper, the potential of renewable energies to ameliorate thermal comfort and reducing energy consumption in building sectors is experimentally investigated. Three renewable‐based applications are used: wind‐catcher (WC), solar chimney (SC), and earth to air heat exchanger (EAHE). The three techniques are connected to a real‐scale test room and investigated using in‐situ measurement. The contribution of each technique is discussed separately. Temperature, humidity sensors, and anemometer are used to study parameters affecting thermal comfort. Obtained results show that the use of wind‐catcher could provide in the presence of wind an internal airflow of 3.8 m.s−1 which reduces inside room temperature by 6°C. A solar chimney creates a difference between its inlet and outlet air temperature by 5.9°C and increases the kinetic energy of hot air leaving the solar chimney which is replaced by cool air from outside and other devices outlet (EAHE and WC) and increases internal airflow even with the absence of winds. The earth to air heat exchanger increases the outlet air temperature in winter by 8°C and reduces it by 12°C in summer. Inside test room hygrometry is also ameliorated by the use of EAHE. Analyzing the new system (test room + WC + SC + EAHE) shows an important amelioration of inside thermal comfort. A difference between inside and outside test room temperature is found: reduction of 13°C in summer, and a gain of 10°C in winter. The new system leads to better inside test room thermal comfort conditions and to reduce energy consumption by almost 50%. The present study presents the first experimental investigation of using three renewable energies in the same building to improve thermal comfort. Using real scale room and in‐situ measurement gives a realistic idea and results show that green energy could improve the thermal situation and energy saving. This is an original work to motivate building designers, especially in the arid region to use more than one renewable energy to ameliorate thermal comfort in both summer and winter seasons.

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“…For the Mediterranean climate, Rosa et al (2020) developed a numerical study to evaluate the impact of three parameters (pipe spacing, pipe diameter and air flow velocity) on the overall thermal performance of an EAHE for residential buildings located in Coimbra, Portugal. The results show that the EAHE system operating in heating mode cannot provide thermal comfort because the outlet air temperatures obtained are very low.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-objective optimisation of a seasonal solar thermal energy storage system combined with an earth – Air heat exchanger for net zero energy building

et al. 2021

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Net Zero Energy Building (NZEB) is a high performance building concept that integrates passive design and renewable energy systems. The aim of this paper is to analyze the performance of multi-integrated renewable energy systems for nearly zero energy buildings in the Mediterranean context. Taking into account the particular technical characteristics of net-zero energy buildings, this study focuses on three different systems: 1) an Earth -Air Heat Exchanger (EAHE), 2) an Underground Tank (UNT) and 3) a Solar Thermal Collector. The first step of the methodology was to study the energy efficiency of the combination between EAHE and UNT for heating needs. An experimental facility equipped with monitoring sensors was constructed. For the second step, we propose a numerical study of the energy performance of the UNT coupled with a solar thermal collector and combined with an EAHE in order to improve the coverage rate of heating needs. The results show that the combination of the three systems satisfied all the needs with a rate of 131% for the climatic conditions of Oran, Algeria. On the other hand, the EAHE and UNT systems operating separately covered 49.3% and 41.7%, respectively. Combining three systems simultaneously saves 37.9 € (or 232.8 kWh of energy needs) and reduces by 21.1 tons of CO2 emissions during the heating period.

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Assessment of an earth-air heat exchanger (EAHE) system for residential buildings in warm-summer Mediterranean climate

Cited by 38 publications

References 30 publications

Indoor thermal climate after energy efficiency measures of a residential building in a sub-Arctic region: Comparing ANSYS CFX and IDA ICE methods

Indoor thermal climate after energy efficiency measures of a residential building in a sub-Arctic region: Comparing ANSYS CFX and IDA ICE methods

New passive thermal comfort system using three renewable energies: Wind catcher, solar chimney and earth to air heat exchanger integrated to real‐scale test room in arid region (Experimental study)

Multi-objective optimisation of a seasonal solar thermal energy storage system combined with an earth – Air heat exchanger for net zero energy building

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