Accepted Manuscript

Thermal design of Earth-to-Air Heat Exchanger. Part I A new transient semi-

analytical model for determining soil temperature

Amar Rouag, Adel Benchabane, Charaf-Eddine Mehdid

PII: S0959-6526(18)30395-0

DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.02.089

Reference: JCLP 12036

To appear in: Journal of Cleaner Production

Received Date: 27 March 2017

Revised Date: 07 January 2018

Accepted Date: 08 February 2018

Please cite this article as: Amar Rouag, Adel Benchabane, Charaf-Eddine Mehdid, Thermal design
of Earth-to-Air Heat Exchanger. Part I A new transient semi-analytical model for determining soil
temperature, Journal of Cleaner Production (2018), doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.02.089

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 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

1 Thermal design of Earth-to-Air Heat Exchanger. Part I A new

2 transient semi-analytical model for determining soil temperature
3
4 Amar Rouag 1, 2, Adel Benchabane 1*, Charaf-Eddine Mehdid 3
5
6 1 Laboratoire de Génie Energétique et Matériaux, LGEM, Université de Biskra, B.P. 145 R.P. 07000 Biskra,
7 Algeria

8 2 Université Kasdi Merbah de Ouargla, Faculté des Hydrocarbures, des Energies Renouvelables, des Sciences de
9 la Terre et de l’Univers, Département des Energies Renouvelables, BP 511, Ouargla 30000, Algeria

10 3 Laboratoire de Génie Mécanique, LGM, Université de Biskra, B.P. 145 R.P. 07000 Biskra, Algeria

11 Abstract
12 This article is the first in a series about the thermal design of Earth-to-Air Heat Exchanger,
13 EAHE, using a new developed semi-analytical method. The temperature distribution in the
14 soil surrounding the EAHE is studied in the goal to determine the soil radius as a function of
15 the operation duration. This radius is the first distance from the pipe axis where there is no
16 effect of heat from EAHE. For that, a new transient semi- analytical model is developed in
17 particular to facilitate the thermal design of EAHEs. The main application of the developed
18 model is to predict the deterioration in EAHE's thermal performance as a function of the
19 duration operation. This deterioration can be caused by soil thermal saturation where the
20 nearby subsoil temperature becomes almost equal to the inlet air temperature resulting in
21 minimum heat transfer between air and soil. The analytical solution of the proposed model
22 has been integrated by means of the Bessel function method, for a constant heat flux per unit
23 of length at the pipe surface in the radial dimension and constant inlet air temperature. The
24 model has been verified with several results obtained from the literature. In addition, an
25 investigation of continuous operation of an EAHE is made on thermal performance of the
26 EAHE in the soil of the region of Biskra (Southern Algeria) (34°47’N - 005°43’E) by
27 applying extreme ambient air temperature (57°C). Results show that the deterioration in
28 thermal performance of EAHE is observed for longer duration in hot and dry climate. In the
29 case of 6 hours of continuous operation, the soil radius can reach 0.55m from the pipe surface.
30 The model proposed in this paper can be considered as the first of its kind which gives a

*Author to whom all correspondence should be addressed; email: adel.benchabane@gmail.com;

a.benchabane@univ-biskra.dz

Emails of the co-authors: rouagamar@yahoo.com; mehdid.charafeddine@gmail.com

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31 formula for calculating the soil radius (thickness) as a function of the: i) duration of operation,
32 ii) soil thermal diffusivity, iii) pipe diameter and iv) air temperature.
33
34 Keywords: Earth-to-Air Heat Exchanger, thermal design, soil radius, semi-analytical
35 solution.
36 1. Introduction
37 Because of the world energy crisis, depletion of the ozone layer and global warming, the
38 implementation of alternative sources to replace conventional fuel becomes inevitable
39 (Klemeš et al., 2010). Recently, passive heating and cooling systems are widely employed for
40 their advantage of consuming no or very low energy compared to the conventional heating
41 and cooling systems (Jafari and Haghighi Poshtiri, 2017; Peuportier et al., 2013).
42 In the last decades, many techniques have been developed to utilize these passive
43 heating/cooling systems such as Earth-to-Air Heat Exchanger. Earth-to-Air Heat Exchanger
44 (EAHE) is one of the renewable technologies to provide both heating and cooling by using the
45 small variation of the earth subsurface temperature as compared by ambient air temperature
46 over the year.
47 Several researchers have studied, using experimental, analytical and numerical models, the
48 heat transfer in and/or around the pipes of EAHE (Al-Ajmi et al., 2006; Bansal et al., 2012;
49 Bansal et al., 2013; Bansal et al., 2010; Barakat et al., 2016; Belloufi et al., 2017;
50 Benhammou and Draoui, 2015; Liu et al., 2014; Mathur et al., 2015a; Mathur et al., 2015b;
51 Mathur et al., 2016; Mathur et al., 2015c; Ozgener et al., 2011; Philippe et al., 2009; Rouag et
52 al., 2016; Trombe and Serres, 1994).
53 Few works in the literature considered EAHE in cooling mode due to its low thermal potential
54 compared to the heating mode (Bansal et al., 2012; Bansal et al., 2013; Bansal et al., 2010;
55 Barakat et al., 2016; Belloufi et al., 2017; Benhammou and Draoui, 2015; Mathur et al.,
56 2015a; Mathur et al., 2015b; Mathur et al., 2016; Mathur et al., 2015c; Moummi et al., 2010;
57 Ozgener et al., 2011; Philippe et al., 2009).
58 Some of these studies showed that the thermal performance of EAHE gets deteriorated during
59 continuous operation mode (Bansal et al., 2013; Benhammou and Draoui, 2015; Mathur et al.,
60 2015a; Mathur et al., 2015b; Mathur et al., 2016; Mathur et al., 2015c; Niu et al., 2015;
61 Ozgener et al., 2011; Philippe et al., 2009). This thermal deterioration is due to the soil
62 thermal saturation which is the state of soil at which the nearby subsoil temperature becomes

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63 almost equal to the inlet air temperature resulting in minimum heat transfer between air and
64 soil (Mathur et al., 2016; Niu et al., 2015; Yu et al., 2014).
65 Experimental setup carried out by Ozgener et al. (2011) to study the total thermal resistance
66 required to the thermal design of a closed loop of EAHE. Bansal et al. (2010) studied
67 experimentally the effect of the soil thermal conductivity and the time period of continuous
68 operation of the EAHE for different pipes length. The authors found that the performances of
69 the exchanger depend mainly of the thermal conductivity and also on the operation time. They
70 concluded that the soil radius is equal to three times the pipe radius for 24 hours of operation.
71 Another experimental investigation by the same team show that the thermal performance of
72 EAHE can be improved by integrating an evaporative cooler at the outlet of the EAHE
73 (Bansal et al., 2012). Experimental investigation conducted by Niu et al. (2015) to understand
74 the thermal saturation and recovery of soil surrounding the EAHEs pipes. The authors
75 concluded that the maximum deterioration in the thermal performance in terms of temperature
76 drop obtained during continuous operation of 24 hours.
77 As numerical studies, a transient and implicit model based on Computational Fluid Dynamics
78 (CFD) is developed by Bansal et al. (2013) to analyse the thermal performance of EAHE for
79 summer cooling. Mathur’s team used a verified transient CFD model to study the effect of the
80 thermo-physical properties of the soil on the thermal performance of the EAHE by running it
81 12 hours continuously (Mathur et al., 2015a; Mathur et al., 2015b; Mathur et al., 2016;
82 Mathur et al., 2015c). The authors found that, in the case of constant inlet air temperature and
83 flow rate, dissipation of heat from EAHE to its surrounding soil depends particularly on soil
84 thermal conductivity and soil thermal diffusivity (Mathur et al., 2015a). Among the proposed
85 solutions, effect of thermal saturation on the thermal performance of EAHE can be remedied
86 by providing extra length especially for soil of low conductivity and/or increasing space
87 between buried pipes (Mathur et al., 2015b). These solutions was confirmed recently by
88 Belloufi et al. (2017) who studied numerically and experimentally the thermal performance of
89 EAHE under transient conditions in cooling mode in the region of Biksra, Algeria.
90 Measurements were taken in continuous operation for 71 hours summer season. The
91 numerical model was developed by using the finite differences method. It was found that the
92 continuous operation mode have no remarkable effect on the outlet air temperature, in the
93 case of long length of pipes (53 m), and thus on the EAHE performances during all the 71
94 hours. Furthermore, Mathur et al. (2015c) were found that the soil temperature can be
95 recovered in both intermittent and continuous operation modes. The recovering can be made

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96 by employing natural heat conduction (heat taken away from the pipe in the case of
97 intermittent operation mode) and convection (heat taken away by purge air passing through
98 EAHE in night hours when ambient air temperature is lower than soil temperature in the case
99 of continuous operation mode). A transient one-dimensional numerical model is presented by
100 Benhammou and Draoui (2015) to study the performance of EAHE for summer cooling.
101 According to the authors, the performance of EAHE is more influenced by the operation time
102 period of the system, the pipe diameter and the air velocity. Mathur et al. (2016) developed a
103 numerical simulation to investigate the thermal performance and soil temperature during
104 summer operation of EAHE in Jaipur, India, to estimate extent of soil thermal deterioration.
105 Results showed that by the end of summer, the soil leads to thermal saturation which make it
106 unusable for next summer. Three strategies were tested to estimate extent of soil recovery to
107 improve the performance which are: night purging during summer, day operation during
108 winter and night operation during winter. It was found that the average COPs of: summer with
109 night purging, winter day and winter night operation mode are respectively 4.23, 3.68, 5.01,
110 and 6.65. A numerical study of the transient thermal behaviour of an EAHE for three climates
111 in México (extreme weather, mild weather and hot weather) was conducted by Xamán et al.
112 (2015) for both cooling and heating modes. The simulations were done in an in-house code
113 based on the finite volume method for different Reynolds numbers as a function of the time
114 functioning. Results showed that the EAHE worked correctly for cooling and heating
115 purposes during the whole day. However, for the cooling mode in hot weather, EAHE did not
116 work and inlet air temperature can exceed inlet temperature during certain period of the day.
117 Authors recommended a control system to close the inlet of air during this period.
118 The effect of thermal insulation at the outlet section of the EAHE was studied numerically by
119 the same work team Xamán et al. (2014). It has been shown that the insulation is important to
120 avoid undesirable heat gain from the soil at the outlet. Thus, a thickness of 0.05 is
121 recommended because it can improve the cooling effect up to 5 °C with respect to the EAHE
122 without insulation whatever the climatic conditions.
123 For analytical solutions, Philippe et al. (2009) presented and studied the validity ranges of
124 three analytical solutions to transient heat transfer in the soil surrounding geothermal
125 boreholes. The results of these three solutions are compared and their validity domains are
126 determined.
127 Among the studies cited above, several works studied the appropriate soil radius required to
128 the design of EAHEs. This radius is the first distance from the pipe axis where there is no

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129 effect of heat from EAHE (Al-Ajmi et al., 2006; Bansal et al., 2013; Benhammou and Draoui,
130 2015; Mathur et al., 2015a; Ozgener et al., 2011). However, to the author's best knowledge
131 there is no scientific argument demonstrating the choice of this radius. Indeed, a lot of authors
132 assume that this radius is negligible or constant (Al-Ajmi et al., 2006; Bansal et al., 2013;
133 Trombe and Serres, 1994). The authors of the present work strongly believe that this radius is
134 not constant but can increase and decrease depending on the: i) duration of operation, ii) soil
135 thermal diffusivity, iii) pipe diameter and iv) air temperature. For this purpose, authors
136 propose in this paper a new transient semi-analytical model, to estimate the soil radius
137 surrounding the EAHE pipe, taking into account all of the cited parameters. Using the initials
138 of the authors’ last names, we refer below to this new model as RBM model. This latter is
139 verified with other results obtained from the literature. Finally, an example of the use of the
140 RBM model is given to evaluate: i) the distribution of soil temperature surrounding the
141 EAHE, ii) and the soil radius, where the heat coming from the pipe vanishes, as a function of
142 the duration of operation. In the second part of this article, the RBM model will be used to
143 estimate soil thermal resistance. Then, a new semi-analytical model, called Generalized RBM
144 model (GRBM model), was developed to predict the thermal performance of EAHE under
145 transient conditions of air where the results are validated with experimental work in the region
146 of Biskra.
147 2. RBM model description
148 2.1. Analytical development
149 The transient semi-analytical model presented in this paper calculates heat transfer in the soil
150 in the vicinity of horizontal EAHE subjected to a constant heat transfer rate at the inner pipe
151 radius (Neumann’s condition); the pipe of the EAHE is buried in a medium (soil) whose far-
152 field temperature is constant.
153 Continuous functioning of the geothermal heat exchanger causes the increasing of the soil
154 temperature in the immediate vicinity over the time (Barakat et al., 2016; Liu et al., 2014;
155 Nebbali, 2013). Thus, to ensure a continuous air cooling, it is necessary to know the optimum
156 distance between the tubes, and also between the exchangers in the case of the use of several
157 EAHEs.

158 For that, the heat conduction equation (Eq. (1)) (Al-Khoury, 2011; Yener and Kakç, 2008)
159 was solved at the entrance of EAHE in the soil which considered as a semi-infinite hollow
160 cylinder with a constant air heat flux per unit length at r = r1 as shown in Figure 1.

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1 u  2u 1 u
161   for r  r1 (1)
 t r 2 r r

162 where u  r , t   T  r , t   T0 and T0 is the initial soil temperature.

163 The corresponding boundary conditions are given by Eqs. (1a, 1b and 1c) and illustrated in
164 Figure 1.

165 u  r, 0  0 (1a)

166 u  r  , t   0 (1b)

 u 
167   r .2 r   q0 (1c)
r  r1

168

169 Fig. 1. Scheme of the studied semi-infinite hollow cylinder.

170 After using Laplace transform (Ozisik, 1993), the Eq. (1) becomes:

 2û 1 û s
171   û0 (2)
r 2 r r 

172 û  r  , s   0 (2a)

173  û  q (2b)
  r .2 r   0
s
r  r1

174 The solution of this latter can be obtained as

q0 K 0 ( r s )
175 û  r, t   (3)
2 r1 s K1 ( r1 s /  )

176 where K0 and K1 are the modified Bessel functions of the second kind of zeroth and first
177 order. Then, using the Bromwich integral (Al-Khoury, 2011), the inverse Laplace transform
178 can be expressed as the following equation:

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  i
q0 K 0 (r s )
179 u  r, t   e
st
ds (4)
4 2 rb i  i K1 (rb s /  )

180 Carslaw and Jaeger (1959) gave the solution of the integrand in eq. (4) at s = 0, of the form:

2Q0

J 0   r  Y1   r1   Y0 (  r ) J1   r1 
181 u  r, t    (1  e
 2 t
) (5)
 0
 [ J12   r1   Y12   r1 ]

182 where Q0  q0 / 2 r1 , at r  r1

183 In order to avoid the problem of solving infinite integrals involved in infinite regions, it is
184 recommended, to terminate the far field distance, where it is known analytically as
185 r  r  4 αt (Al-Khoury, 2011), that heat flux generated by the inlet air vanishes. For a

186 finite region, the solution can be obtained in terms of series summation, which converges
187 relatively rapidly. Yener and Kakç (2008) have shown that the solution of the heat equation in
188 the cylindrical coordinate system, of a finite domain in the range r1  r  r , subjected to a

189 heat flux q’(t) per unit length, can be expressed as:

J 0 (  n r ) J 0 (  n r1 )  n2 '

 t
1
190 u  r, t   en t 0e q ( )d (6)
2

 r 2 n 1 J1 (  n r )

191 where  n are the positive roots of J 0   n r   0 . In practice, in many of the utilized models,

192 heat flux coming from the Earth-to-Air Heat Exchanger is considered constant. In this paper,
193 and by solving the integral of Eq. (6), the temperature distribution in the soil can be expressed
194 as the following:

1  e  n t J 0 (  n r ) J 0 (  n r1 )
2
q'
195 T  r , t   T0 
 r 2 
n 1  n2 J1 (  n r )
(7)

196 where the heat flux per unit length, q’, and soil thermal resistance, Rs, are calculated by the following
197 equations:

(T f  T0 )
198 q'  (8)
Rs

1 r
199 where Rs  ln(  ) (9)
2s L r1

200 In order to make the Eq. (7) more applicable, the authors propose the substitution of the Eqs.
201 8 & 9 in Eq. (7). Thus, the transient temperature distribution in the soil surrounding the
202 EAHE can be written as:

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 2
2(T f  T0 ) 1  e  n t J 0 (  n r ) J 0 (  n r1 )
203 T  r, t  
r   n2 J1 (  n r )
 T0 (10)
r 2 ln(  ) n 1
r1

204 2.2. Estimating soil radius by RBM model

205 The heat flux coming from the EAHE decreases over the time due to the increasing of the
206 surrounding soil temperature near the tube which induces variation of the soil radius rδ, and
207 therefore, the soil thermal resistance. For that, the temperature of the soil surrounding the tube
208 is calculated using Eq. (10) by changing the soil radius, rδ, for every step of time (i.e heat flux
209 remains constant in the full current time step). This radius, rδ, is the first distance where the
210 soil temperature reaches the T0 (initial soil temperature).
211 For better understanding the calculation method, Figure 2 presents the organizational chart of
212 the developed RBM model which is qualified as a semi-analytical model. First, soil radius rδ
213 is initialized as two times of pipe radius before calculating the gradient of soil temperature by
214 the Eq. (10). When the soil temperature reaches the initial temperature T0, the current radial
215 distance (in the current step of time) is recorded as the radius of the disturbed soil, r.
216 Thereafter, the new, r, serves to calculate the distribution of the soil temperature for the full
217 next step of time.
218 As can be seen in Figure 2 and Eq. (10), the RBM model takes into account all parameters
219 affecting the performance of such systems (thermo-physical properties of air and soil, ambient
220 temperature, geometrical parameters of and operation duration) which make the design of
221 shallow geothermal heat exchangers more reliable. Otherwise, both analytical aspect and the
222 simplicity of the present model make also the thermal design of these systems more accurate
223 with significantly reduced calculation time.
224

225

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226
227 Fig. 2. Organizational chart of the RBM model.
228

229 3. RBM Model verification

230 The model developed in the previous section was verified by various data for different
231 operating parameters in the literature. In this part of article, only the shape of soil temperature
232 and soil radius are verified with the works of Barakat et al. (2016) and Mathur et al. (2015a).
233 It should be noted that in the results presented below, the temperature of the pipe surface is
234 steady during the operation and considered equal to air temperature.
235 For the air side, the RBM model will be used in a new approach called GRBM model that will
236 be described and validated in the second part of this article. The EAHE will be designed by
237 giving the air temperature profile taking into account the variation of the soil radius and thus
238 the thermal resistance.

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239 The model was verified against the numerical study which carried out by Barakat et al. (2016)
240 who discretized the equation of radial heat conduction through the soil into a computational
241 domain using the finite difference method. Table 1 gives the detailed input parameters of soil,
242 pipe and time functioning used in the numerical simulation of Barakat et al. (2016). Figure 3
243 shows that there is a good agreement between the soil radial temperature predicted by the
244 RBM model with the numerical results of (Barakat et al., 2016) with an average relative
245 difference of 1.62 %. It is observed that after 12 hours of operation, the soil reaches to the
246 initial temperature at range of 0.5m from the pipe surface.
247 Table. 1. Input parameters for the comparative verification with Barakat et al. (2016).
Soil parameters Soil thermal capacity (J/(kg K)) 1,995.4
Soil thermal conductivity (W/(m K)) 1.74
Soil Density (kg/m3) 1,868
Soil initial temperature (°C) 25
Pipe parameters Pipe surface temperature (°C) 40
Pipe diameter (m) 0.3
Duration of operation Time (h) 12
248

249
250 Fig. 3. Verification model with the work of Barakat et al. (2016).
251 The model was also verified with the CFD model developed by Mathur et al. (2015a) in
252 GAMBIT (version 2.2.3) and simulated in ANSYS FLUENT (version 6.3) that used finite
253 volume method. The input parameters of Mathur et al. (2015a), which are used for the
254 comparative verification, are given in Table 2. The results of the comparison between the soil
255 radial temperature at 10 m section from the inlet predicted by the RBM model and the
256 numerical data of Mathur et al. (2015a) are gathered in Table 3. The choice of this section is

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257 due to that Mathur et al. (2015a) have studied the variation of the soil temperature only at the
258 entrance of the EAHE. Besides, at the section of 10 m, the temperature slope is large which
259 allowing for verification of the RBM model.
260 As can be seen in Table 3, a good agreement is recorded where the relative difference is lower
261 than 6%. Thus, the RBM model is verified and can be used for further analysis.
262 Table 2. Input parameters for the comparative verification with Mathur et al. 2015a.
Soil parameters Soil density (kg/ m3) 2,050
Soil specific heat (J/kg K) 1,840
Soil thermal conductivity (W/(m K)) 0.52
Surrounding soil diameter r∞(m) 1.1
Pipe parameters Pipe diameter (m) 0.1
Pipe surface temperature (°C) 46.2
Section in the pipe (m) 10
263
264
265 Table 3. Verification of soil temperatures estimated by RBM model against the numerical
266 data of Mathur et al. (2015a) at 10 m of distance.

Soil temperatures (°C) Relative

Time (h)
(Mathur et al., 2015a) RBM model difference
%
1 28.46 27.69 2.70
radial distance from

3 30.07 28.81 5.40

pipe surface (m)

0.05
6 31.34 30.02 5.74
12 32.61 31.69 4.94
1 27.00 27.08 0.31
3 27.00 27.16 0.47
0.25
6 27.00 27.18 0.56
12 27.01 27.21 0.62
267
268 However, these verifications are carried out for small durations of operation (<12 hours) and
269 more verifications taking into account long durations are recommended. Despite this
270 limitation, the RBM can be used to get a quick estimate of soil temperature and thus soil
271 radius.
272 4. Example of application in the soil of the region of Biskra (Algeria)

273 In this section, an example of application of the RBM model in the soil of the region of Biskra
274 (Southern Algeria) (34°47’N - 005°43’E) is performed to calculate the soil radius as function
275 of the duration of operation of the EAHE. Table 4 presents the thermo-physical properties of
276 the soil and the input parameters used in the application.
277 According to Eq. (10), the performance of shallow geothermal EAHE is highly affected by
278 ambient temperature which considered in this work as the inlet air temperature Tf. For that,

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279 testing the EAHE under extreme operating conditions is recommended in order to ensure an
280 adequate design. For this purpose, in this case of study, the prediction of the maximum level
281 of thermal performance deterioration is carried out by applying the world’s highest
282 temperature recorded (Tf = 57°C (El Fadli et al., 2012)) found in the literature.
283 Figure 4 shows the values of both soil radius, rδ, and heat flux, q’, calculated by the RBM
284 model as a function of the duration operation. The soil radius up to which the thermal
285 influence is observed depends proportionally on the duration operation of the EAHE system.
286 The increasing of soil radius causes the increasing of the soil thermal resistance, and therefore
287 the decreasing of the heat flux transferred to the soil. Hence, the performance of EAHE
288 system gets deteriorated due to saturation of soil surrounding the pipe during continuous
289 operation. Furthermore, the using of the transient conditions with constant heat flux (for each
290 time step) overestimates the required length of the pipe, which can guarantee the thermal
291 comfort in continuous summer functioning. Besides, the values of soil radius illustrated in
292 figure 4 reflect the distance between pipes (not influencable distance) in the case of
293 serpentine-shape heat exchanger and the depth between heat exchangers in the case of several
294 EAHEs.
295

296 Table 4. Input parameters used in the application of EAHE in region of Biskra (Algeria).
Soil parameters Soil thermal conductivity (W/(m K)) (Moummi et al., 2010) 2.5
Soil thermal diffusivity (m²/s) (Moummi et al., 2010) 2.7x10-6
Soil initial temperature (°C) 20
Pipe parameters Pipe diameter (m) 0.3
Ambient temperature Inlet air temperature (°C) 57
297

298 Figure 5 presents the distribution of the soil temperature surrounding the entrance of the tube
299 on a horizontal plane at 3 m depth. As shown in Figure 5, as the duration of operation
300 increases, the slope of soil temperature increases. Hence, maximum deterioration of thermal
301 performances is observed after continuous operation of EAHE for 24 hours. This suggests that
302 penetration of heat into the soil is mainly influenced by the duration of continuous operation.
303 From the figure 5, it can be concluded that the RBM model can also be used to predict the
304 thermal deterioration in EAHE’s thermal performance as function of the duration operation.
305 These results make the thermal design of EAHEs more reliable because it takes into
306 consideration all the parameters which can affect the performance of the system (Eq. (10) and
307 Figure 5). According to Figure 5 and for a maximum daily operating time does not exceed 6
308 hours, the heat propagation of this duration can reach 0.55 m from the pipe surface.

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309 Consequently, to ensure a continuous air cooling, the minimum distance between the tubes is
310 at range of 1.1 m.
311

312

313
314 Fig. 4. Soil radius rδ used in calculation of the heat flux.

315
316 Fig. 5. Radial soil temperature at the entrance of the EAHE for different duration of
317 continuous operation.
318
319 5. Conclusion

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320 In the present paper, a new semi-analytical model (RBM model) for transient heat conduction
321 in the soil surrounding of EAHE’s pipe is presented. The main application of the RBM model
322 is to predict the deterioration in EAHE's thermal performance as function of the duration
323 operation. Unlike classical models of the thermal design of EAHEs, the RBM model takes
324 into account at the same time: the radial dimension, the constant heat flux at the pipe surface
325 and the soil radius variation with time. The expression of the semi-analytical solution of the
326 RBM model has been integrated by means of the Bessel method.
327 The RBM model has been verified with several results obtained from the literature. It has
328 shown that the new model is more creditable, especially for values of soil radius more than
329 the pipe radius.
330 Furthermore, an example of application of the RBM model in the soil of Biskra region was
331 performed by applying an extreme ambient air temperature (57°C). Results showed that in the
332 case of 6 hours, of continuous operation, the soil radius can reach 0.55m from the pipe
333 surface. Thus, the RBM model can be used to predict the thermal deterioration in EAHE’s
334 thermal performance as function of the duration operation.
335 It can be concluded that the RBM model can be used to estimate the soil radius required to
336 design the EAHE according the: i) duration of operation, ii) soil thermal diffusivity, iii) pipe
337 diameter and iv) air temperature. Therefore, the RBM model can be considered as the first of
338 its kind which gives a formula to estimate the soil radius (thickness) as a function of all of the
339 cited parameters which make the design of shallow geothermal heat exchangers more reliable.
340 Otherwise, both analytical aspect and the simplicity of the present model make also the
341 thermal design of these EAHE systems more accurate with significantly reduced calculation
342 time.
343 The variation of air flow rate has an important role to design EAHEs. Thus, a complementary
344 part of this paper entitled ‘Thermal design of Earth-to-Air Heat Exchanger. Part II A new
345 transient semi-analytical model and experimental validation for estimating air temperature’
346 will be published. In this second part, the RBM model will be used to estimate soil thermal
347 resistance. Then, a new transient semi-analytical model is developed to predict the thermal
348 performance of EAHE taking into account all the above conditions. An experimental
349 investigation is also carried out in the region of Biskra (Algeria) to validate the developed
350 model.
351

352 Acknowledgments

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353 This study was supported by the Algerian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific
354 Research as a part of CNEPRU project. The authors are very grateful for the assistance and
355 the enlightening discussions with Dr. Nora Boultif.
356

357 Nomenclature
T Temperature °C
Tf Fluid temperature °C
T0 Initial soil temperature °C
Rs Soil thermal resistance m² K/W
r1 Tube Radius m
rδ Soil radius m
L Length m
q' Heat flux per unit of length W/m

358 Greek letters

ρ Density Kg/m3
λ Thermal conductivity W/(m K)
α Thermal diffusivity m²/s
δ soil thickness m
359 Subscripts
s Soil
1 Inner
t Tube

360

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Highlights
 New transient semi-analytical model, named RBM model, is presented and verified.
 Application example of the RBM model in Biskra (Algeria) is illustrated.
 RBM model is used for the thermal design of Earth-to-Air Heat Exchanger, EAHE.
 RBM model predicts the deterioration in EAHE's thermal performance.
 RBM model estimates the soil radius as a function of time and soil/air properties.