Discipline: Technology and Engineering
Subcategory: Civil/Mechanical/Manufacturing Engineering
Session: 1
Takele Gemeda - University of the District of Columbia
Co-Author(s): Dr. Jiajun Xu, P.E., University of the District of Columbia, DC
Effective system energy management and cooling is critical for a range of increasingly complex systems and missions. Various industries and agencies seek technologies to use energy more efficiently in various applications, and thereby increase system energy efficiencies in future advanced energy systems. There has been an increasing interest in exploiting the use of additive manufacturing in developing nontraditional energy conversion schemes. Meanwhile, wind power and solar power systems have become part of common knowledge and conversation over the past few years. While these provide excellent sustainable options of energy production, geothermal energy systems are just as efficient and economical. Solar and wind energy collectors are also site specific. However geothermal systems do not take up buildable ground level space nor are they location or climate specific. The earth has a generally constant temperature throughout the year which can be used in geothermal systems to benefit all sites. If all geothermal resources were combined, enough energy would be produced to provide all of the electricity needs in the United States.
In this study, an additively manufactured heat exchanger was developed and integrated with a geothermal heating and cooling system for improved efficiency. A customized geothermal heating and cooling loop was designed and developed. Within this system, this additive manufactured heat exchanger is designed and fabricated to improve it efficiency when it functions as the evaporator (for summer comfort cooling) and the condenser (for winter comfort heating). This heat exchanger was designed using CREO software and fabricated using an EOS M280 metal laser sintering system at University of the District of Columbia. It is then integrated with a heat pump to exchange heat between a constant temperature of water bath circulator and a water heat sink. A prototype system was designed and constructed, which allowed the direct assessment of its performance. The measurement has shown a significant improvement in its efficiency. It has shown the promising application of metal additive manufacturing technique in improving the efficiency of existing energy harvesting applications.
References: Arun Muley, ‘Advanced Heat Exchangers for Enhanced Air Side Performance: A Design and Manufacturing Perspective,’ ARPA-E Advanced Dry Power Plant Cooling Workshop, Chicago, IL, May 12-13, 2015
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Stuart J.Self, Bale V.Reddy, Marc A.Rosen, ‘Geothermal heat pump systems: Status review and comparison with other heating options,’ Applied Energy, 101, pp. 341-348, 2013
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Funder Acknowledgement(s): I would like to acknowledge Dr. Henry Molintas at Carderock Division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Bethesda, MD for his help. Funding was provided by an NSF/HBCU-UP RIA grant to Dr. Jiajun Xu.
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Jiajun Xu, takele.gemeda@udc.edu
Role: A customized geothermal heating and cooling loop was designed and developed. Within this system, this additive manufactured heat exchanger is designed and fabricated to improve it efficiency when it functions as the evaporator (for summer comfort cooling) and the condenser (for winter comfort heating). This heat exchanger was designed using CREO software and fabricated using an EOS M280 metal laser sintering system at University of the District of Columbia. It is then integrated with a heat pump to exchange heat between a constant temperature of water bath circulator and a water heat sink. A prototype system was designed and constructed, which allowed the direct assessment of its performance. The measurement has shown a significant improvement in its efficiency.