Radiant panel free cooling of office building using a new ground heat exchanger integrated with phase change material cubes
摘要
The building industry is today confronted with a significant challenge including meeting the growing demands for net-zero energy and sustainable design requirements while maintaining occupant comfort. The integration of passive and active cooling systems, using ground source heat pumps, cooling radiant ceiling panels, and phase change materials is a promising solution in this context. Accordingly, the present study introduces an innovative framework that combines three cooling circuits of a radiant ceiling cooling system for office building integrated with two configurations of borehole ground heat exchangers combined with two designs of phase change material, half circular inline and staggered, cylindrical compact storage modules. A 3D experimental validated numerical model for thermal performance analysis was created using ANSYS software based on the finite volume technique. The simulation results demonstrate that: (i) the half-circular inline and staggered cylindrical storage modules effectively maintain the outlet water temperature from the ground heat exchanger at 26.5 °C after six hours of the charging process; (ii) the double U-tube cooling configuration, integrated with the half-circular inline and staggered cylindrical storage modules, is capable of reducing the inlet water temperature to 22.5 °C and 23.5 °C, respectively, after six hours of operation; and (iii) supplying this cooled water to a radiant ceiling cooling panel within an office space