In the past two decades, a growing interest in alternative energy resources as a replacement to the non-renewable resources used now days. These alternatives include geothermal energy which can be used to generate power and reduce the demands on energy used to heat and cool buildings. Ground-coupled ventilation system is one of the many applications of the geothermal energy that have a lot of attention in the early 80's and 90's but all designs of the system where based on single case situations. On the other hand, computational fluid dynamics tools are used to simulate heat and fluid flow in any real life situation. They start to develop rapidly with the fast development of computers and processors. These tools provide a great opportunity to simulate and predict the outcome of most problems with minimum loss and better way to develop new designs. By using these CFD tools in GCV systems designing procedure, energy can be conserved and designs going to be improved.
The main objective of this study is to find and develop a CFD modeling strategy for GCV systems. To accomplish this objective, a case study must be selected, a proper CFD tool chosen, modeling and meshing method determined, and finally running simulations and analyzing results. All factors that affect the performance of GCV should be taken under consideration in that process such as soil, backfill, and pipes thermal properties. Multiple methods of simulation were proposed and compared to determine the best modeling approach. / Master of Science
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/35736 |
| Date | 08 February 2009 |
| Creators | Alghamdi, Jamal Khaled |
| Contributors | Architecture, Jones, James R., Vlachos, Pavlos P., Schubert, Robert P. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | Final_Thesis_2008.pdf |
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