Analysis and improvements of outdoor hot benches in Gävle

Abstract: Five exterior hot benches have been installed in Gävle, in Kyrkogatan street by the company Gävle Energi with the aim of achieving the wellnes of people that sit on them. This system uses the residual heat from the district heating, representing consequently a non-polluting system. However, the temperature desired on the surface, 35°C is not always achieved before different exterior conditions. For this reason, Gävle Energi is interested in carrying out a study about enhancements that could be made in the system in order to take them into account for future projects of this kind of technology.   The aim of this project is analysing if it would be possible to achieve the requirements established by Gävle Energi, changing with this objective all the necessary system parameters of the current system such as diameter of the pipes, materials, number of turns... These requirements consist of working with a supply temperature of 40, 45 and 50°C when the exterior conditions are 0, -5 and -10°C respectively, accomplishing always 35°C on the surface. Moreover, in case that it was not possible, providing the company with the characteristics of the system that would make the system as efficient as possible, specifying for different exterior temperatures the mass flow, pressure drop, velocity and needed power.   The study has been developed by different simulations with the software COMSOL, whose use requires a high knowledge on heat transfer. After several simulations, it has been checked that it is not possible to accomplish the requirements established by the company. However, a new more efficient design has been designed because the supply temperatures of the system to accomplish an average temperature of around 35°C on the surface have been minimised. For that, several changes have been carried out. The number of pipes turns have been increased from 12 to 17, their total diameter from 20mm to 30mm and the distance between the centres of the pipes from 5.5cm to 4cm. The 2mm of outer plastic thickness of the pipes has been replaced by copper and the height of the pipes has been moved 2cm upwards.   With all these changes, the final length of the pipes inner the stones has a value of 40.6m and the supply temperatures reach 46, 47 and 49°C for the 0,-5 and -10°C exterior conditions respectively. Apart from the supply temperatures for the study cases, the ones necessary to accomplish always the temperature desired on the surface for other exterior temperatures have been provided together with the amount of power necessary, velocity flow, volumetric flow and pressure drop for all the different cases. These values would allow the company to work always at the optimum point as well as to design the heat pump for the system.