Another recent innovation that has become an efficient passive cooling technology is the Earth-Air Heat Exchanger (EAHEs), which takes advantage of the comparatively constant earth temperature in the ground to decrease the heat burden in buildings. In this work, an EAHE system has been analyzed in detail with the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in ANSYS Fluent in order to determine its thermal performance in Indian climatic conditions. A three dimensional model is created which is a 28 m long and 0.15 m diameter buried PVC pipe and three configurations straight pipe, serpentine pipe and grooved serpentine pipe are explored. The findings show that geometric modifications are very important in improving the thermal performance of the system. The grooved serpentine design attains highest temperature drop of 12.4degC as opposed to 7.1degC in the straight pipe. The enhancement of the heat transfer is however at the cost of higher pressure losses hence there is a trade off between thermal performance and pumping power. The results confirm that optimized EAHE systems could help minimize cooling loads up to 30-40 percent and can therefore be a solution to sustainable buildings application in India.

As evidenced by the current study, the behavior of an Earth-Air Heat Exchanger is very much sensitive to the geometry of the pipes and the nature of the flow. The serpentine grooved arrangement offers the best temperature drop as it will increase the turbulence and heat transfer. Nonetheless, such an enhancement is accompanied by a drastic upsurge in the pressure drop, which is why there is the necessity of a specific compromise between thermal activity and energy use. In general, EAHE systems have high potential of minimizing cooling loads in buildings, and it can be an effective long-term cooling solution to Indian climatic conditions. Although work may go into the future to make experimental validation and add the effect of soil moisture to achieve a more precise prediction.

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