Horizontal earth-air heat exchanger for preheating external air in the mechanical ventilation system

Abstract

To save traditional energy sources in mechanical ventilation systems, it is advisable to use low-energy ground energy for preheating or cooling the outside air. Heat exchange between ground and outside air occurs in ground heat exchangers. Many factors influence the process of heat transfer between air in the heat exchanger and the ground, in particular geological and climatic parameters of the construction site, parameters of the ventilation air in the projected house, physical and geometric parameters of the heat exchanger tube. Part of the parameters when designing a ventilation system with earth-air heat exchangers couldn’t be changed. The one of the factors, the change which directly affects the process of heat transfer between ground and air, is convective heat transfer coefficient from the internal surface of the heat exchanger tube. In this article the designs of a horizontal earthair heat exchanger with heat pipes was proposed. The use of heat pipes in designs of a horizontal heat exchanger allows intensification of the process of heat exchange by turbulence of air flow inside the heat exchanger. Besides this, additionally heat transfer from the ground to the air is carried out at the expense of heat transfer in the heat pipe itself.

Keywords

• ventilation system
• horizontal earth-air heat exchanger
• heat transfer
• heat pipe