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

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.

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (21) ◽  
pp. 7643
Author(s):  
Donggyu Kim ◽  
Myungkwan Lim ◽  
Byeongseok Yu ◽  
Changhee Lee

Standing column well (SCW) geothermal heat exchanger permits a bleeding discharge of less than 20% in the event of a maximum load, which is an inappropriate method of using underground water. In this study, the existing operational method of two adjacent SCW geothermal heat exchangers, each with a single well, was modified. This technology aims to improve the coefficient of performance (COP) of the geothermal system by fundamentally preventing underground water discharge and maintaining a constant temperature of the underground heat exchanger. To curb the bleed water discharge, two balancing wells of cross-mixing methods were employed. The result of the cooling and heating operations with the existing SCW heat exchange system and the balancing well cross-combined heat exchange system showed that the measured COP increases by 23% and 12% during the cooling and heating operations, respectively. When operating with a balanced well cross-mixed heat exchange system, the initial temperature of the underground was constant with a small standard deviation of 0.08–0.12 °C.


2011 ◽  
Vol 374-377 ◽  
pp. 398-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Ning Hu ◽  
Ban Jun Peng ◽  
Shan Shan Hu ◽  
Jun Lin

A hot-water and air-conditioning (HWAC) combined ground sourse heat pump(GSHP) system with horizontal ground heat exchanger self-designed and actualized was presented in this paper. The heat transfer performance for the heat exchanger of two different pipe arrangements, three layers and four layers, respectively, was compared. It showed that the heat exchange quantity per pipe length for the pipe arrangement of three layers and four layers are 18.0 W/m and 15.0 W/m. The coefficient of performance (COP) of unit and system could remain 4.8 and 4.2 as GSHP system for heating water, and the COP of heating and cooling combination are up to 8.5 and 7.5, respectively. The power consumption of hot-water in a whole year is 9.0 kwh/t. The economy and feasibility analysis on vertical and horizontal ground heat exchanger were made, which showed that the investment cost per heat exchange quantity of horizontal ground heat exchanger is 51.4% lower than that of the vertical ground heat exchanger, but the occupied area of the former is 7 times larger than the latter's.


2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (01) ◽  
pp. 1750006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keun Sun Chang ◽  
Min Jun Kim ◽  
Young Jae Kim

In recent years, application of the standing column well (SCW) ground heat exchanger (GHX) has been noticeably increased as a heat transfer mechanism of ground source heat pump (GSHP) systems with its high heat capacity and efficiency. Determination of the ground thermal properties is an important task for sizing and estimating cost of the GHX. In this study, an in situ thermal response test (TRT) is applied to the thermal performance evaluation of SCW. Two SCWs with different design configurations are installed in sequence to evaluate their effects on the thermal performance of SCW using a single borehole. A line source method is used to derive the effective thermal conductivity and borehole thermal resistance. Effects of operating parameters are also investigated including bleed, heat injection rate, flow rate and filler height. Results show that the effective thermal conductivity of top drawn SCW (Type A) is 11.7% higher than that of bottom drawn SCW (Type B) and of operating parameters tested bleed is the most significant one for the improvement of the thermal performance (40.4% enhanced in thermal conductivity with 10.9% bleed).


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 3737
Author(s):  
Aneta Sapińska-Śliwa ◽  
Tomasz Sliwa ◽  
Kazimierz Twardowski ◽  
Krzysztof Szymski ◽  
Andrzej Gonet ◽  
...  

This work concerns borehole heat exchangers and their testing using apparatus for thermal response tests. In the theoretical part of the article, an equation was derived from the known equation of heat flow, on which the interpretation of the thermal response test was based. The practical part presents the results of several measurements taken in the AGH Laboratory of Geoenergetics. They were aimed at examining the potential heat exchange capacity between the heat carrier and rock mass. Measurement results in the form of graphs are shown in relation to the examined, briefly described wells. Result analysis made it possible to draw conclusions regarding the interpretation of the thermal response test. The method of averaging the measurement results was subjected to further study. The measuring apparatus recorded data at a frequency of one second, however such accuracy was too large to be analyzed efficiently. Therefore, an average of every 1 min, every 10 min, and every 60 min was proposed. The conclusions stemming from the differences in the values of effective thermal conductivity in the borehole heat exchanger, resulting from different data averaging, were described. In the case of three borehole heat exchangers, ground properties were identical. The effective thermal conductivity λeff was shown to depend on various borehole heat exchanger (BHE) designs, heat carrier flow geometry, and grout parameters. It is important to consider the position of the pipes relative to each other. As shown in the charts, the best (the highest) effective thermal conductivity λeff occurred in BHE-1 with a coaxial construction. At the same time, this value was closest to the theoretical value of thermal conductivity of rocks λ, determined on the basis of literature. The standard deviation and the coefficient of variation confirmed that the effective thermal conductivity λeff, calculated for different time intervals, showed little variation in value. The values of effective thermal conductivity λeff for each time interval for the same borehole exchanger were similar in value. The lowest values of effective thermal conductivity λeff most often appeared for analysis with averaging every 60 min, and the highest—for analysis with averaging every 1 min. For safety reasons, when designing (number of BHEs), safer values should be taken for analysis, i.e., lower, averaging every 60 min.


Author(s):  
Osamu Suzuki

We experimentally measured the heat-transport characteristics of a bubble-driven heat-transport device. The device consisted of a non-looped copper tube containing water. The tube was either meandered or spiraled to form tube bundles. The inner surface of the tube was smooth and its diameter small enough to enable the formation of vapor and liquid plugs in it. Two copper blocks were attached to the tube bundles, one as a heating block and the other as a cooling block. In the experiment, most of the wall temperatures measured on the tube fluctuated periodically at a quasi-steady state. Time-averaged temperature gradients between the heating and cooling sections of the device were constant. By increasing heater input from 300W to 350W, the amplitude of the temperature fluctuations decreased and the temperature gradients increased significantly. This behavior was regarded as a transition to critical heat transport condition. The effective thermal conductivity of the device was proportional to the heat-transport rate but did not depend on the formation of the tube bundle and the gravity effect. The temperature fluctuations had specific peak frequencies and a positive correlation was found between the frequency and effective thermal conductivity. These experimental results strongly suggest that the main heat-transport mechanism of the investigated device is based on the oscillation-induced transport of sensible heat.


Author(s):  
Li-Xia Wu ◽  
Mao-Yu Zheng

In severely cold climate, significant amount of energy is used to heat buildings. Both the theoretical computation and experiments show that it is difficult and uneconomical to use solar energy collected merely in winter. A new method has been developed to store solar energy during summer, fall, and spring for winter heating. This paper presents in details the combined heating and cooling system by solar ground-source heat pump (GSHP) and short-term phase change material (PCM) thermal storage. The hybrid system and season-shift mode can make the sustainable use of solar energy possible. As for the above system, the solar energy collected is stored into soil through the U-tube heat exchanger. In winter, the thermal energy is taken out for heating using the GSHP. At the end of the heat supply season, the underground soil temperature may drop below 0°C. Then some heat exchangers begin to store the heat into soil while others stop. In summer, the U-tube heat exchanger is used to produce low temperature water without compressor to cool the room. The project was supported by the Energy Conservation Laboratory at Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT). The whole systems, which have run for over two years, consist of a flat plate solar hot water system installed on the roof, a soil thermal storage system, a GSHP system, a PCM thermal storage system and heating-cooling system. The measured results show an average heating coefficient of performance (COP) of 3.2 in winter and the cooling coefficient of performance (COP) of 18.0 in summer. The PCM thermal storage system has been investigated by numerical simulation and experiments in the cold climate. In most time of winter, the PCM thermal storage system was used to supply heat, while solar GSHP was also used during continuous cloudy days and severely cold days. The result shows that above method is feasible. The most advantage of this system is that it does not need the usual energy equipment. The numerical analysis has been used to investigate the thermal energy balance of the underground soil. The variation of the soil temperature field around the U-tube heat exchanger has also been studied, not only for the single exchanger but also for multiple exchangers. The underground soil makes the yearly thermal balance possible because the solar energy supplies the heat that is extracted from the soil for heating in winter. Then this system can operate for a long period.


2010 ◽  
Vol 132 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Luckow ◽  
Avram Bar-Cohen ◽  
Peter Rodgers ◽  
Juan Cevallos

The compression process necessary for the liquefaction of natural gas on offshore platforms generates large amounts of heat, usually dissipated via sea water cooled plate heat exchangers. To date, the corrosive nature of sea water has mandated the use of metals, such as titanium, as heat exchanger materials, which are costly in terms of life cycle energy expenditure. This study investigates the potential of a commercially available, thermally conductive polymer material, filled with carbon fibers to enhance thermal conductivity by an order of magnitude or more. The thermofluid characteristics of a prototype polymer seawater-methane heat exchanger that could be used in the liquefaction of natural gas on offshore platforms are evaluated based on the total coefficient of performance (COPT), which incorporates the energy required to manufacture a heat exchanger along with the pumping power expended over the lifetime of the heat exchanger, and compared with those of conventional heat exchangers made of metallic materials. The heat exchanger fabricated from a low energy, low thermal conductivity polymer is found to perform as well as, or better than, exchangers fabricated from conventional materials, over its full lifecycle. The analysis suggests that a COPT nearly double that of aluminum, and more than ten times that of titanium, could be achieved. Of the total lifetime energy use, 70% occurs in manufacturing for a thermally enhanced polymer heat exchanger compared with 97% and 85% for titanium and aluminum heat exchangers, respectively. The study demonstrates the potential of thermally enhanced polymer heat exchangers over conventional ones in terms of thermal performance and life cycle energy expenditure.


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