Energy from a two-pipe, earth-to-air heat exchanger

Solar energy accumulated in the soil may be utilized with an air-to-earth heat exchanger (ATEHE) which has two pipes buried in the soil, one made of PVC and one of steel. During the winter, air is heated; during the summer, it is cooled and then used in an air-conditioning device. To obtain the mathematical model of the ATEHE, we divided the soil and pipes into elementary volumes, used steady-state energy equations, and applied a time-marching method. We determined how the season, soil thermal conductivity and pipe spacing influence energy transfer from the soil to the ATEHE and also the steel-pipe contribution to this energy transfer. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.