Joseph Paul Carpenter
Year:
2015
Bibliographic info:
Building Simulation, 2015, Hyderabad, India

This paper evaluates the influence of underground piping on the performance of using increased thermal capacitance (ITC) as a passive energy management system on an office building. The building’s cooling load will be decreased by circulating water from a storage tank through underground piping then through a piping system located in the building’s ceiling. The cooling load of an ITC enhanced building with underground piping is compared to the cooling load of an ITC enhanced building without underground piping and a reference building without ITC at all. The reference building and the ITC enhanced building were simulated in Atlanta, GA, and New York, NY using the transient system simulation software TRNSYS. To improve the performance of the ITC piping system, a piping was buried 3 m to use the ground as a heat sink, i.e. transferring heat from the working fluid to the soil. The simulation results showed that ITC could reduce the overall cooling load for the summer months by almost 7%. ITC was ineffective for reducing the heating load.