The design of a ground heat exchanger for Underground Thermal Energy Storage (UTES) applications requires, among other parameters, knowledge of the thermal properties of the soil (thermal conductivity, borehole thermal resistance and undisturbed soil temperature). In situ determination of these...

The developed 1-dimensional biomass gasification mathematical model [1] was validated using the experimental results obtained from a circulating fluidized bed biomass gasifier. The reactor was operated on rice husk at various equivalence ratios (ER), fluidization velocities and biomass feed...

Geothermal heat pumps use the earth as a source of and sink for thermal energy used and given off by structures to be space conditioned. Closed and open loops of polyethylene pipe are placed into the ground or into surface waters to effect heat exchange with the earth. The space conditioning...

In groundwater-filled borehole heat exchangers (BHEs) convective flow influences the heat transfer in the borehole. During heat extraction thermal response tests (TRTs) the effect of the changing convective flow is more dominant than during heat injection tests. Water is heaviest around 4 °C...

Thermal performance of vertical U-pipe borehole heat exchanger (BHE) is an important research subject for the design and application of ground-coupled heat pump system (GCHPs). This paper presents an improved evaluation method for thermal performance of BHE based on analytical solution model,...

Technology directed at geothermal energy, one of our renewable energy sources, to heat and air-condition buildings has become very attractive in recent years following the significant developments in ground-source heat pump (GSHP) systems. In general, although the energy efficiency of GSHP...

During a thermal response test (TRT) or during operation of a borehole heat exchanger (BHE) system, a temperature gradient in and around the borehole is achieved. This causes convective flow in the groundwater due to density differences. In groundwater filled BHE the convective heat flow...

The Kelvin line-source equation, used to analyze thermal response tests, describes conductive heat transfer in a homogeneous medium with a constant temperature at infinite boundaries. The equation is based on assumptions that are valid for most ground-coupled heat pump environments with the...

Thermal response test (TRT) is crucial for the determination of the ground thermal conductivity and the evaluation of the thermal performance of borehole heat exchangers (BHEs) of ground source heat pump (GSHP) system. This paper presented a novel constant heating-temperature method (CHTM) for...

Sizing of ground-coupled loop heat exchangers (GLHE) depends on the ground thermal conductivity and capacity, and the borehole thermal resistance. One popular method to estimate the thermal parameters is the interpretation of in situ thermal response tests. The modeled response is...