Navegando por Autor "Vaz, Joaquim"

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An experimental study on the use of earth-air heat exchangers (EAHE)
(2014) Vaz, Joaquim; Sattler, Miguel Aloysio; Brum, Ruth da Silva; Santos, Elizaldo Domingues dos; Isoldi, Liércio André
The thermal potential of Earth-Air Heat Exchangers (EAHE) is experimentally investigated for a placementin Viamão, city located in the south of Brazil. Three independent ducts are buried in the soil, ducts A and B are installed at a depth of 1.60 m and 0.60 m apart, while duct C is installed at a depth of 0.50 m. Thethermal conditions of one build named Casa Ventura are improved with the EAHE. The temperatures forthe soil, external air and in buried ducts in several positions are acquired along one year (2007). The mainpurpose here is the achievement of the transient behavior of temperature fields for the external air, soiland buried ducts and the best periods of time for employment of device. Results showed that the monthsof May and February were the best for heating and cooling the air used in Casa Ventura, respectively.Moreover, it was developed a complete database about the transient temperatures of the soil, externalair and inside the building.
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Experimental and numerical analysis of an earth-air heat exchanger
(2011) Vaz, Joaquim; Sattler, Miguel Aloysio; Santos, Elizaldo Domingues dos; Isoldi, Liércio André
The need to develop new technologies that allow the use of sustainable alternative sources of energy is increasingly evident. Thus, this work presents an experimental and numerical study of earth–air heat exchangers, which are used to reduce consumption of conventional energy for heating and cooling of built environments through the use of thermal energy contained in the soil. The experiment was conducted in southern Brazil in the city of Viamão, and its results were used to validate the computational modeling of heat exchangers. In the present work, the variation of air temperature inside the ducts, to an annual cycle, was investigated. The numerical solution of the conservation equations of the problem is performed with a commercial code (FLUENT) which is based on the Finite Volume Method (FVM). Turbulence is tackled with the Reynolds Stress Model (RSM). The transient temperature fields predicted numerically was compared with the experimental ones, the highest difference found was lower than 15%. The results showed the validity and effectiveness of the employed computational model, enabling its use for future researches and projects developments about earth–air heat exchangers.
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Geometric optimization based on the constructal design of perforated thin plates subject to buckling
(2012) Rocha, Luiz Alberto Oliveira; Real, Mauro de Vasconcellos; Correia, Anderson Luis Garcia; Vaz, Joaquim; Santos, Elizaldo Domingues dos; Isoldi, Liércio André
Elastic buckling is an instability phenomenon that can occur if a slender and thin-walled plate is subjected to axial compressive load. It is well known that the presence of holes in structural plate elements is almost inevitable in inspection, maintenance, and service purposes, or to reduce the structural weight. In this paper constructal design was employed to optimize the geometry of thin perforated plates submitted to elastic buckling. Simply supported rectangular perforated plates were analyzed with three different shapes of centered holes: elliptical, rectangular, and diamond. The purpose was to obtain the optimal geometry that maximizes the critical buckling load. The ratio between the height and length of the plate was kept constant, while the ratio between the characteristic dimensions of the holes was optimized for several hole volume fractions (φ). A finite-element model was used to assess the plate buckling load, and the Lanczos method was applied to the solution of the corresponding eigenvalue problem. When φ ≤ 0.20 the optimum geometry is the diamond hole, reaching maximum buckling loads around 80.0,21.5, and 17.4% higher than a plate without perforation and plates with elliptical and rectangular holes, respectively. For intermediate and higher values of φ, the elliptical and rectangular holes, respectively, led to the best performance. The optimal shapes were obtained according to the constructal principle of minimization of distribution of imperfections, showing that the constructal design also can be employed to define the optimized geometries in the mechanics of material problems.
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A new computational modeling to predict the behavior of Earth-Air Heat Exchangers
(2013) Brum, Ruth da Silva; Vaz, Joaquim; Rocha, Luiz Alberto Oliveira; Santos, Elizaldo Domingues dos; Isoldi, Liércio André
The use of renewable energy sources to improve the thermal conditions of built environments and hencedecreasing the consumption of conventional energy is an important aspect to design a sustainable build-ing. Within this context, it is possible to harness the solar energy that reaches the Earth’s surface andis stored by the soil as thermal energy. To do so, the Earth-Air Heat Exchanger (EAHE) device can beemployed, consisting of a buried duct through which the external ambient air is insufflated. The flowingair exchanges heat with surround soil, and leaves the device with a milder temperature compared to itsinput temperature. The main goal of this work was to present a new computational modeling to predictthe thermal behavior of EAHE. This new numerical model has the advantage of needing a lower com-putational effort, allowing the study about the influence of operational and constructive parameters, aswell as, the application of geometric optimization methods in EAHE. A case study was developed whereinfluence of the installation depth in the thermal potential of an EAHE was investigated. The results arein agreement with those found in literature; however they were obtained with a reduction in processingtime of almost 45%.
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Numerical investigation about the improvement of the thermal potential of an Earth-Air Heat exchanger (EAHE) employing the Constructal Design method
(2015) Rodrigues, Michel Kepes; Brum, Ruth da Silva; Vaz, Joaquim; Rocha, Luiz Alberto Oliveira; Santos, Elizaldo Domingues dos; Isoldi, Liércio André
The Earth-Air Heat Exchanger (EAHE) is a device used to improve the thermal condition of built environments, allowing the reduction of electrical energy consumption of traditional air conditioner systems. Fundamentally, its operational principle is based on fluid mechanics and heat transfer, areas in which Constructal Design has been widely used to seek for the optimal geometries, i.e., which leads to the best performances. In spite of this fact, the employment of Constructal Design for improvement of the EAHE thermal potential has not been performed into literature. Therefore, the main purpose of this work is to perform a numerical investigation on different geometrical configurations of an EAHE using the Constructal Design to obtain the highest thermal potential. Results indicated that, for the same area occupied by the ducts and fixed mass flow rate of air, the increase of the number of ducts (complexity of geometry) improved the EAHE thermal performance up to approximately 73% for cooling and 115% for heating.
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Two-dimensional computational modeling of the soil thermal behavior due to the incidence of solar radiation
(2013) Brum, Ruth da Silva; Isoldi, Liércio André; Santos, Elizaldo Domingues dos; Vaz, Joaquim; Rocha, Luiz Alberto Oliveira
Nowadays, there is a focus on finding sustainable energy sources, as well as, alternatives to rationalize the use of electrical energy. In this sense, the employment of Earth-Air Heat Exchangers (EAHE) is one technique which allows the reduction of energy consumption for climatization of buildings environments. The present study shows the evaluation of a numerical method to estimate the ground thermal potential, allowing its applicability for future thermal design of EAHE. The soil domain is considered two-dimensional and a transient solution for the thermal behavior of the soil is obtained. Moreover, a soil surface temperature distribution equation based on experimental data is employed to define the domain boundary conditions. The simulations are performed with a numerical method based on the finite volume method, more precisely using the software FLUENT®. The results presented an excellent agreement with analytical solutions showing the validity and effectiveness of the computational model for prediction of the soil behavior. The numerical results were also confronted with experimental ones predicted into literature and show a good agreement, with a deviation lower than 14%. The main difference is attributed to the duct presence which is taken into account only for the experimental study.