Thermal transpor modelling - Helix loop vertical pipes

Hello everyone!

I´m currently dealing with a feflow model of a shallow geothermal system with helix loop vertical pipes. The goal is to estimate the efficiency of each pipe, depending on it´s relative location to other pipes and considering groundwater flow. I want to estimate the energy obtained from each pipe from the temperature difference in-out of the heat carrier fluid. Modelling with "BHE" would give me information about the temperature of the carrier fluid but, since it only allows me to use U-Pipes, I would loose a lot of thermal exchange surface per borhole meter. If I translate the expected thermal exchange in terms of lenght of the pipe (more leght of the borhole to obtain the same exchange surface), I would have an unreal groundwater flow influence.

Did someone here ever consicer helix loop vertical pipes in a feflow model? How did you solve the problem?

Thanks a lot!

G.

Ciao Gloria.
I also had a thought on helix loop vertical pipes. I thought of how they could be modeled with feflow but I couldn't come up with any solution. I think it may be possible to fully discretize the pipes but it would takea huge amount of time to design the geometry. Let me know if you succeeded in finding a solution, I am very interested.
Good luck,
Zeno

Ciao Zeno,

Yes, fully discretizing the helix loops would probably be the most accurate solution and it´s also what Wasy support suggests... A pity but I don´t have the budget for such a model. We´re testing if the temperature in-out results obtained from simulating "extra-big" coaxial pipes could be adapted but we didn´t get to any conclusions yet.

What about you? Any further ideas on the subject?

Good luck to you too!