Open Access

ARTICLE

A Darcy-Law Based Model for Heat and Moisture Transfer in a Hill Cave

Fei Liu¹, Dongliang Zhang^2,*, Qifu Zhu¹, Qingyong Su¹

1 College of Energy and Building Environment, Guilin University of Aerospace Technology, Guilin, 541004, China
2 College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Guilin University of Aerospace Technology, Guilin, 541004, China

* Corresponding Author: Dongliang Zhang. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Computational Mechanics and Fluid Dynamics in Intelligent Manufacturing and Material Processing)

Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing 2023, 19(9), 2345-2359. https://doi.org/10.32604/fdmp.2023.027084

Received 13 October 2022; Accepted 08 February 2023; Issue published 16 May 2023

Abstract

A hill can be regarded as an environmental carrier of heat. Water, rocks and the internal moisture naturally present in such environment constitute a natural heat accumulator. In the present study, the heat and moisture transfer characteristics in a representative hill cave have been simulated via a method relying on the Darcy’s law. The simulations have been conducted for both steady and unsteady conditions to discern the influence of permeability and geometric parameters on the thermal and moisture transfer processes. The reliability of the simulation has been verified through comparison of the numerical results with the annual observation data. As revealed by the numerical findings, the internal temperature of the hill accumulator is proportional to the permeability, outside surface temperature, overground height, underground constant temperature layer depth, and underground temperature of the hill, and it is inversely proportional to the horizontal size of the hill. Moreover, in the considered case, the order of magnitude of the permeability of the hill is contained in the range 10⁻¹⁵–10⁻¹³, and displays a certain sensitivity to the rainwater seepage.

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