On the design of earth-water heat exchangers for ventilation systems in buildings

Abstract

Paper presented at the 7th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Turkey, 19-21 July, 2010.

In this paper a design methodology is proposed for earth­water heat exchangers. These systems are emerging as an alternative to the well known earth-air heat exchangers for passive houses. Earth-air heat exchangers are often used for passive cooling means of ventilation air. As an alternative earth-water systems are now starting to get used, as they offer a lot of advantages . Up till now no clear design methodology has been proposed. In this paper a methodology is developed based on optimizing thermal performance in relation to pressure drop.