Soil inertia and shallow basement envelope impact on cellar internal temperature

This work deals with a three dimensional numerical study of heat transfer by conduction between the soil and the shallow basement in the city of Marrakech (Morocco). The heat transfer equation is solved by the finite difference method using the implicit alternative direction (ADI). The internal temperature of the cellar is computed by using energy balance equation in the cellar. The objective of this work is to evaluate the effects of the nature of the soil, the nature of the walls, the thickness of the walls of the cellar and the distance L far from the cellar on the internal temperature and the heat exchanged between the soil and the shallow basemen

Comparison of shallow basement thermal performance for different regions of Morocco using a three-dimensional heat transfer analysis

A three-dimensional numerical model was built to estimate the heat transfer between the soil and a shallow basement in four different climates (cold, temperate, semi-arid and arid climates) for, respectively, conditioned and unconditioned cases. The governing heat transfer equation in soil and basement was solved by the finite difference method using the alternating-direction implicit scheme (ADI). The air temperature for the case of conditioned shallow basement was maintained constant while it was computed for the case of unconditioned cellar using energy balance equation. The effects of the basement geometry, soil types and climatic conditions on the thermal behavior of the conditioned and unconditioned shallow basement were carried out. The heat losses and isotherms analysis showed that the heat flux is more significant through the walls than the basement floor and occurred mainly in the walls-floor edges. Furthermore, lowering the thermal diffusivity of the soil leads to a decrease in the shallow basement heating load. Our results show that the shallow basement as expected is more beneficial in hot climates than in cold ones. It was also brought to light that the basement thermal load is dependent on the soil type in temperate climates