Water Carrying Concrete Core

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Water carrying concrete core
Going into details with thermally activated concrete slabs, there are several thermo active slab systems that could be applied all with the same concept but the difference is according to the position of the pipes. For example capillary tube systems were the pipes are fixed under the concrete slab which is not that much efficient as it doesn’t take advantage of the thermal mass capacity of concrete. Second under floor temperature control in which the pipes are embedded under the floor which is also not that much efficient as cooled air moves down ward not up wards so it will not be suitable for cooling but for heating. Concrete core temperature control in which the pipes are embedded in the concrete core proved to be the most efficient system that’s why in this section it will be explained into details.

Concrete core with temperature control
In active systems, the building structure is activated to store the thermal energy and discharge it when required. This process takes place on three phases “charging”, “storage” and “discharging”. First charging, circulating cold or hot water through the embedded pipes in the slab, the slab will be charged with cooling or heating energy depending on the water temperature. There are different techniques to control charging by water flow rate and charging period. Second storage, during day time excess heat produced from building occupants and devices is transferred to the slab which increases its temperature, the time between the heat supplied from the slab and demanded by the room is the storage period. As for discharging, it happens in a complete passive way without any external influence as 60% of energy is transferred by radiations and 40% by convection.

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...e heat or cooled to be charged during the night period to be stored and released when temperature increases in the morning. The excess energy charged and stored is to avoid wide range of variation in room temperature still this method is not that much efficient as it is not precisely controlled. Second, continuous operation, this operation method is only available when ground or ground water is used without any restrictions so cooled water is charged into the slab continuously; this method is more efficient with cooling energy than heating energy. As for control operation, there are several factors that are taken into consideration in this method as the outdoor temperature, indoor temperature and the temperature difference between energy source and the activated mass to be able to control the supplied temperature, rate of water flow and the source of heat needed.

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