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Underground energy storage utilizing concrete building foundation: Experimental and numerical approach
Author(s) -
Mousa M. M.,
Bayomy A. M.,
Wang J.,
Dworkin S. B.,
Saghir M. Z.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
international journal of energy research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.808
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1099-114X
pISSN - 0363-907X
DOI - 10.1002/er.5789
Subject(s) - borehole , laminar flow , thermal energy storage , parametric statistics , foundation (evidence) , volumetric flow rate , engineering , pile , flow (mathematics) , drilling , thermal , geotechnical engineering , environmental science , nuclear engineering , mechanics , mechanical engineering , meteorology , thermodynamics , statistics , mathematics , aerospace engineering , history , physics , archaeology
Summary Space heating and cooling represent 63% of total building energy demand. In the present study, the concept of concrete foundation piles was used as an underground storage medium. This system requires no additional drilling costs or space, unlike conventional boreholes. A laboratory‐scaled experiment facility was designed to experimentally investigate the thermal response of a concrete pile during the charging and discharging processes. The amount of energy stored and released during each process was evaluated. A flow rate parametric study was also conducted to explore the effect of the laminar and turbulent flow behavior. In order to complement the experimental study, an extensive CFD model was developed and compared with the experimental data. There was good agreement between the numerical and experimental results for each process at different flow rates. The results revealed that increasing the flow rate increases not only the heat rejection and extraction but also the storage efficiency.