Investigation of convective-conductive heat transfer in geothermal system

Geothermal energy is one of the well-known types of renewable energies that can be considered as a promising alternative to fossil fuels in order to mitigate the CO2 emission in atmosphere. Geothermal energy has recently been used for heating and cooling systems in many countries of the world. Therefore, studying such kind of energy seems important and necessary. This paper studies the heat transfer processes in a borehole heat exchanger (BHE). The flow of fluid in a BHE has been considered with different geometries and heat transfer processes are modeled numerically and in a finite volume method through convection and conductivity. First, a single U-shaped BHE was modeled and its thermal properties were investigated and then other geometries were studied to obtain the best geometry and heat transfer efficiency. In order to increase the heat transfer in the inner part of the pipes, the fin with the given specifications was used and the modeling was carried out and the thermal parameters were compared for three BHE's with different geometries. In the final part, optimization results are presented, and the interaction of parameters on the Nusselt number and friction coefficient have been investigated. Also, the desirability of optimization and reliability is given to the results presented in percentage terms. Comparing the results of this article with the results of previous research shows a very good agreement and therefore the applied method is reliable and accurate.