Earth-to-air heat exchange through a buried pipe at a school in La Pampa, Argentina

SILVANA FLORES LARSEN; CELINA FILIPPÍN,; GRACIELA LESINO,

Santiago de Chile

Congreso; 20th Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture; 2003

ABSTRACT: In this paper we describe the thermal behavior of a buried pipe used in a laboratory at a school in La Pampa (Argentina). The school uses passive techniques that reduce the conventional energy requirements of the building: north windows for direct solar gain in winter months and daylighting, buried rectangular pipes for ventilation and air cooling in summer period, air collectors, and peripherical insulation. The duct thermal behavior was simulated with a special module for earth-to-air heat exchangers belonging to SIMEDIF for Windows, a code used to simulate the transient thermal behavior of multiroom buildings developed at INENCO (Argentina). The calculated and monitored data sets are compared and they are found to be in good agreement. Finally, the pipe thermal behavior, the influence of the building in the pipe air temperature, the predicted temperature values, and the duct cooling performance are discussed and analyzed.