Slab Heat Transfer Research Articles

Evaluation of Interactions Between Thermal Piles Integrated in Building Foundations

Abstract This paper investigates the impact of thermal interactions between heat exchangers integrated within building foundation piles to meet space heating and cooling needs of buildings. Specifically, a three-dimensional transient numerical model is developed to evaluate the thermal performance of the foundation piles. The model is used to estimate the temperature variations within the soil medium under various operation conditions of thermo-active foundation (TAF) systems. Then, a series of parametric analyses is carried out to evaluate the influence of design parameters of the piles on the performance of TAF systems, including the interactive effects between piles as well as the impact of these piles on the building slab heat transfer. Then, the parametric analysis results are utilized to develop simplified calculation methods to assess the thermal impacts of the geometric features for the piles on both the performance of TAF systems as well as the building slab heat losses and/or gains. The developed simplified calculation methods are suitable to develop design guidelines in order to enhance the performance of thermal piles to heat and cool buildings.

Impact of Layered Soil on Foundation Heat Transfer for Slab-On Grade Floors

This paper presents an analytical solution associated with the steady-periodic heat transfer for a typical slab-on-grade floor building foundation in contact with a nonhomogeneous soil medium. In particular, the solution accounts for the impact of the above-grade wall thickness on the ground-coupled heat transfer. The interzone temperature estimation profile (ITPE) technique is utilized to obtain the analytical solution to determine soil temperature distributions and to estimate foundation heat loss/gain from slab-on-grade floors. In this paper, the impact of the nonhomogeneous soil properties on the transient foundation heat transfer is investigated for various slab configurations and soil thermal properties. The presented solution presents the first ITPE analytical solution for building foundation coupled with layered soil medium. The results indicate that nonhomogeneous soil properties have a significant effect on soil temperature distribution and on total slab heat loss. In particular, it is found that an error of up to 20% in estimating total slab heat transfer can be incurred if homogeneous soil medium is considered instead of a two-layered ground.

Numerical simulation of fluid flow and solidification in continuous slab casting mould based on inverse heat transfer calculation

A mathematical model based on an inverse heat transfer calculation was built to determine the heat flux between the mould and slab based on the measured mould temperatures. With K–ϵ turbulence model, a mathematical model of three-dimensional heat transfer and solidification of molten steel in continuous slab casting mould is developed. Solidification has been taken into consideration, and flow in the mushy zone is modelled according to Darcy’s law as is the case of flow in the porous media. The heat flux prescribed on the boundaries is obtained in the inverse heat conduction calculation; thus, the effect of heat transfer in the mould has been taken into consideration. Results show that the calculated values of mould temperature coincide with the measured ones. Results also reveal that the temperature distribution and shell thickness are affected by the fluid flow and heat transfer of slab which is governed by the heat flux on the mould/slab interface.

Heat transfer of slab with mold wall in continuous-casting machine

Heat transfer of slab with mold wall in continuous-casting machine