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Thermal performance of helical ground air heat exchanger under Saharan climate conditions: an experimental study

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Abstract

In the present research paper, the thermal performance of helical ground air heat exchanger (HGAHE) has been experimentally analyzed under Saharan climate conditions during summer season. A flexible PVC pipe with a diameter of 0.06 m and a length of 30 m has been arranged as a helical-coil layout to design the HGAHE, and it is inserted into a borehole of 5 m depth. The study acknowledges that a drop as high as 11.0 °C in air temperature can be achieved with an air velocity of 10 m s−1 and an inlet air temperature of 38 °C. The study also revealed that, by incrementing the air velocity from 10 to 20 m s−1, the heat exchange rate of the HGAHE system increases by 158% after 3 h of operation time; however, the efficiency of the HGAHE decreases by 21.51%. Moreover, thermal performance derating factor (TPDF) increments with increasing the operation time and air velocity. After 3 h of operation time, the highest TPDF is attained as 0.27 with a velocity of 20 m s−1, whereas the lowest TPDF is observed as 0.14 for a velocity of 10 m s−1.

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Abbreviations

\(A\) :

Surface area, m2

\(C_{{\text{p}}}\) :

Air specific heat, J kg−1 K−1

\(E\) :

Effectiveness

\(\rho\) :

Density, kg m−3

\(d\) :

Pipe diameter, m

\(D\) :

HGAHE diameter, m

\(f\) :

Friction factor

\(f_{{\text{c}}}\) :

Friction factor for curved pipe

\(f_{{\text{s}}}\) :

Friction factor for straight pipe

\(L\) :

Length of PVC pipe, m

\(\dot{m}\) :

Air mass flow rate, kg s−1

\({\Delta }P\) :

Pressure drop, Pa

\(\dot{Q}\) :

Heat exchange rate, W

\(R\) :

Total thermal resistance, °C m W−1

\({\text{Re}}\) :

Reynolds number

\(T\) :

Temperature, °C

\(U\) :

Overall heat transfer coefficient, W m−2 °C−1

V :

Airflow velocity, m s−1

\(Z\) :

HGAHE depth, m

act:

Actual

avg:

Average

h:

Hour

i :

Inlet

max:

Maximum

s :

Soil

o :

Outlet

CFD:

Computational fluid dynamics

EAHE:

Earth air heat exchanger

EPAHE:

Earth pipe air heat exchanger

GAHE:

Ground air heat exchanger

GHE:

Ground heat exchanger

HGAHE:

Helical ground air heat exchanger

TPDF:

Thermal performance derating factor

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Acknowledgements

The first author gratefully acknowledges DGRSDT (Algerian ministry of high education and scientific research) for PhD scholarship and supporting this research work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. LEVRES Laboratory, Faculty of Technology, University of El Oued, 39000, El Oued, Algeria

    Nacer Lebbihiat, Abdelmalek Atia & Noureddine Meneceur

  2. Mechanical Engineering Department, Engineering Faculty, Kocaeli University, 41001, Kocaeli, Turkey

    Müslüm Arıcı

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  1. Nacer Lebbihiat
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  4. Noureddine Meneceur
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, analysis and the first draft of the manuscript were performed by NL and AA. Investigation, writing—reviewing and editing were written by MA and NM, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Nacer Lebbihiat.

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Lebbihiat, N., Atia, A., Arıcı, M. et al. Thermal performance of helical ground air heat exchanger under Saharan climate conditions: an experimental study. J Therm Anal Calorim 148, 5819–5831 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-023-12085-5

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