Mihalakakou, G.; Santamouris, M.; Asimakopoulos, D.; Argiriou, A.
November 1995
Solar Energy, vol 55-5, p. 355-362
A transient, numerical model for the prediction of the ground temperature at various depths below buildings is presented in this paper. The proposed model was developed by calculating the heat flow to the ground from a building, which depends on the complicated three-dimensional thermal process in the ground. The main difficulties in obtaining manageable solutions of the heat flow problem were: The three-dimensionality of the thermal process, the strong temporal variability of the outdoor temperature as well as the large number of parameters involved in describing the building foundation geometry as well as the thermal insulation. The techniques of superposition and numerical analysis were used to cope with these difficulties. The model was validated against experimental data and it was found that it could accurately predict the ground temperature under a building.
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