Feasibility of Using Volcanic Tuff Stone in Ground Heat Exchange for Cooling and Heating Systems in Buildings

Abstract

Energy is a crucial sector in Jordan. In the world, Jordan is considered as the highest dependency on foreign energy sources, with 96% of the country's energy imported from oil and natural gas from neighboring countries. Numerically, it consumes 13% from the gross national product (GNP) costing 2.6 billion JD. The need is appearing to use new renewable resources specifically in air conditioning processes to reduce the bill of energy paid annually, in addition to the improve of practices and policies in energy sector. The current research focuses on the use of the ground heat exchange (GHE) model for cooling and heating system to improve the efficiency of the heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) units in households and apartments using volcanic tuff stone. A GHE model was constructed by making a hole of 2 m X 1.5 m with a depth of 1.5 m, the volcanic tuff stone is placed enabling heat transfer through volume and voids of stone. The cooled air is extracted by a fan located at the exit (duct 20 X 20 cm) with electric capacity is 60 watts. The temperatures and relative humidity for air inlet and outlet were continuously measured during the period of testing. The results showed that the feasibility of using GHE model as a main part of heating/cooling system. The average temperature difference between the air inlet and exit of GHE model are or cooling and heating system respectively. Also, the relative humidity of air improves reasonably and increases in most cases.