Design and Development of an Additively Manufactured Geothermal Heat Exchanger for Improved Efficiency and Easy Installation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takele Gemeda ◽  
Sandy Estrada ◽  
Wondwosen Demisse ◽  
Lei Wang ◽  
Jiajun Xu
Keyword(s):  
Additive Manufacturing ◽  
Heat Exchanger ◽  
Constant Temperature ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
The United States ◽  
Geothermal System ◽  
Geothermal Systems ◽  
Geothermal Heating ◽  
Heating And Cooling ◽  
System Energy

Abstract Effective system energy management and cooling is critical for a range of increasingly complex systems and missions. Various industries and agencies seek technologies to use energy more efficiently in various applications, and thereby increase system energy efficiencies in future advanced energy systems. There has been an increasing interest in exploiting the use of additive manufacturing in developing nontraditional energy conversion schemes. Meanwhile, wind power and solar power systems have become part of common knowledge and conversation over the past few years. While these provide excellent sustainable options of energy production, geothermal energy systems are just as efficient and economical. Solar and wind energy collectors are also site specific. On the other hand, the geothermal systems do not take up buildable ground level space nor are they location or climate specific. The earth has a generally constant temperature throughout the year which can be used in geothermal systems to benefit all sites. If all geothermal resources were combined, enough energy would be produced to provide all of the electricity needs in the United States. However, conventional geothermal system requires the relatively complex installation process and can potentially be cost prohibitive to many potential users. In this study, an additively manufactured heat exchanger was designed and developed to resolve that issue. The heat exchanger can be integrated with a conventional geothermal heating and cooling system for improved efficiency and easy installation. A customized geothermal heating and cooling loop was designed and developed for testing the efficiency of the heat exchanger. Within this proposed system, this additive manufactured heat exchanger is designed and fabricated to improve it efficiency and easy installation with minimal tools needed. This new design eliminates the need of excavation of the soil and installation of long tubes as conventionally required for geothermal system. This new heat exchanger was designed using CREO software and fabricated using an EOS M280 direct metal laser sintering system at University of the District of Columbia. It is then integrated with a heat pump to exchange heat between a constant temperature of water bath circulator and a water heat sink. A prototype system was designed and constructed, which allowed the direct assessment of its performance. The performance of the heat exchanger is studied using COMSOL software to assess its heat transfer performance. The results have shown a significant improvement in its efficiency. It has shown the promising application of metal additive manufacturing technique in improving the efficiency of existing energy harvesting applications.

scholarly journals A Study on Improving the Coefficient of Performance by Comparing Balancing Well and Standing Column Well Heat Exchange Systems

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 10445
Author(s):  
Myungkwan Lim ◽  
Kyoungbin Lim ◽  
Changhee Lee
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Conductivity ◽  
Heat Exchanger ◽  
Effective Thermal Conductivity ◽  
Water Discharge ◽  
Underground Water ◽  
Coefficient Of Performance ◽  
Geothermal System ◽  
Heat Accumulation ◽  
Heating And Cooling ◽  
Discharge Water

This study proposed a technology to improve the performance characteristics and coefficient of performance (COP) of a geothermal system by fundamentally preventing underground water discharge and maintaining a constant temperature of the underground heat exchanger composed of bleed discharge water that utilizes two balancing wells using cross-mixing methods. Using the standing column well (SCW) and cross-mixing balancing well underground heat exchanger, we compared and analyzed the effective thermal conductivity characteristics and COP characteristics during heating and cooling modes. Consequently, the cross-mixing balancing well underground heat exchanger exhibited more effective thermal conductivity than the SCW underground heat exchanger, with a high COP. Therefore, suggesting the performance was improved using groundwater flow rather than SCW. The comparison and analysis results of the effective heat map characteristics using the results of the SCW and balancing well system showed that the heating operation for the SCW underground heat exchanger had better thermal conductivity characteristics than the cooling operation. In addition, regarding a balancing well underground heat exchanger, the cooling operation exhibited superior thermal conductivity characteristics. Thus, the performance was considered to have improved due to the flow of activated groundwater in the ground and the rapid heat transfer without heat accumulation.

Analysis of novel shallow geothermal system in coastal fractured limestone aquifer

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Pastore ◽  
Claudia Cherubini ◽  
Concetta Immacolata Giasi
Keyword(s):  
Heat Exchanger ◽  
Heat Exchangers ◽  
Industrial Area ◽  
Physical Models ◽  
Experimental Investigations ◽  
Geothermal System ◽  
Geothermal Systems ◽  
Borehole Heat Exchanger ◽  
Limestone Aquifer ◽  
Fractured Limestone

<p>In shallow geothermal systems natural and forced groundwater movement as well as the temperature driven flow plays an important role on the borehole heat exchanger efficiency.</p><p>The analysis of the efficiency of innovative heat exchangers installed in a fractured limestone aquifer was carried out through three-dimensional numerical simulations and experimental investigations on physical models.</p><p>The coastal fractured limestone aquifer of the industrial area of Bari (Italy) was chosen as benchmark field site in order to identify the aquifer parameter range and the respective combinations. The role of seawater intrusion on the borehole heat exchanger efficiency was deepen .</p><p>The results disclosed that the efficiency of the innovative heat exchangers is strictly dependent on the aquifer transmissivity and groundwater flow under natural and forced groundwater conditions.</p><p>Discussion on the performance of the seasonal heat storage and the occurrence of the thermal interference between the borehole heat exchanger was presented.</p>

Design of a novel geothermal heating and cooling system: Energy and economic analysis

2016 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 144-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Angrisani ◽  
G. Diglio ◽  
M. Sasso ◽  
F. Calise ◽  
M. Dentice d’Accadia
Keyword(s):  
Economic Analysis ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Geothermal Heating ◽  
Heating And Cooling ◽  
System Energy

PERFORMANCE MONITORING STUDY OF BUILDING-INTEGRATED GEOTHERMAL SYSTEM IN WINTER AND SUMMER

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (02) ◽  
pp. 1350015 ◽  
Author(s):  
HYUNG-KYOU RYU
Keyword(s):  
Heat Exchanger ◽  
Performance Monitoring ◽  
Winter Season ◽  
Geothermal System ◽  
Ground Heat Exchanger ◽  
Test Bed ◽  
Cooling Performance ◽  
Heating And Cooling ◽  
Monitoring Study ◽  
Grouting Materials

The objective of this study is to develop and evaluate ground heat exchanger using the foundation of a building. To this end, we added ground heat exchanger feature to PHC piles and evaluated its heating and cooling performance. First, we investigated the building's foundation system, pipes for heat exchanger and grouting materials. As an outcome, we designed a prototype of building-integrated geothermal system (BIGS). Second, we applied BIGS to apartment houses utility building in Osan S-apartment and G-housing in Song-Do that is 80% energy saving test bed. Third, for the performance of BIGS, we monitored heating performance during winter season in the Osan facility and cooling performance during summer season in the Song-Do facility.

Application Theme 3 – Geothermal Heating and Cooling

2021 ◽  
pp. 479-500
Author(s):  
Alejandro García‐Gil ◽  
Miguel Á. Marazuela ◽  
Violeta Velasco ◽  
Mar Alcaraz ◽  
Enric Vázquez‐Suñé ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Geothermal Heating ◽  
Heating And Cooling

scholarly journals Biofilm Forming Bacteria during Thermal Water Reinjection

Geofluids ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Máté Osvald ◽  
Gergely Maróti ◽  
Bernadett Pap ◽  
János Szanyi
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Water ◽  
Oxygen Demand ◽  
Geothermal System ◽  
Biological Processes ◽  
Geothermal Systems ◽  
The Past ◽  
Surface System ◽  
Buffer Tank ◽  
Physical And Chemical ◽  
Phenol Index

Reinjection of heat-depleted thermal water has long been in the center of scientific interest in Hungary regarding around 1000 operating thermal wells. While the physical and chemical aspects of reinjection have partly been answered in the past years, the effects of biological processes are still less known. We carried out our investigations in the surface elements of the Hódmezővásárhely geothermal system which is one of the oldest operating geothermal systems in Hungary. About one-third of the used geothermal water has been reinjected since 1998 by two reinjection wells at the end of the thermal loops. During the operation, plugging of the surface system was experienced within a few-day-long period, due to biological processes. The goal of our research was to find the dominant species of the microbial flora and to make a proposal to avoid further bacterial problems. We found that the reinjected, therefore the produced, water’s chemical oxygen demand, phenol index, and BTEX composition basically determine the appearing flora on the surface. When the concentration of these compounds in the thermal water is significant and residence time is long enough in the buffer tank, certain bacteria can be much more dominant than others, thus able to form a biofilm which plugs the surface equipment much more than it is expected.

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