Evaluation of Earth-air Heat Exchanger for Cooling
and Heating a Poultry House: Case Study in
Morocco
∗
Azzeddine Laknizi1,2 , Anas ElMaakoul2 ,
Abdellatif Ben Abdellah1,2 and Mouhsine Bouya2
1 IEPSCF-Uccle
Engineering Research Team, Innovation and
Management of Industrial Systems
FST- AbdelmalekEssaâdi University
Tangier, Morocco
2
Valorization and transfer department
International University of Rabat
ParcTechnopolis, Sala Al Jadida 11100, Morocco
E-mail address: eng.azzeddinelaknizi@gmail.com
Abstract—Recently, the Moroccan poultry industry has become
an important sector of activity for the Moroccan economy.
This industrial activity significantly contributes not only in the
national economic growth, but also in the national food security.
Nevertheless, this sector is currently facing numerous challenges
that hinder its progress. One of the major obstacles facing poultry
industry in morocco is climate conditions including heat stress
wave in summer and cold wave in winter that causes mortality
and drop in performance (weight drop). Another problem facing
the poultry industry is the relatively high consumption of con-
ventional energy and corresponding greenhouse gas emissions.
To overcome these problems, our work intends to introduce a
modeling and design of an earth-air heat exchanger for a typical
poultry house.
Keywords—heat stress, earth-air heat exchanger, poultry house.
I. I NTRODUCTION
In 2012, according to the poultry federation of
Morocco(FISA), the Moroccan poultry industry produces
560 ∗ 106 Kg of meat, 4.5 milliards of eggs, employs 360 000
people 110 000 directly and 250 000 indirectly with a total
investment of 9.4 milliards DH. The heat wave and the cold
wave seasonally that strike the country cause great damage
in the sector. For the heat wave the losses in the summer of
the 2012 was about 12% in terms of mortality and 25% in
terms of performance drop (weight loss). For the cold wave
an increase in feed efficiency (quantity of food consumed /
kg body weight produced) and high heating load for building,
cause a sharp increase in production costs.
In order to limit the damage, it is imperative to adapt
the air temperature to adequate values and use an efficient
energy system. To adapt the air temperature, the conventional
solutions are [1]:
• Evaporative cooling which includes two types: pad cool-
ing and misting system.
• Mechanical and natural ventilation.
• Supplemental heating by combustion-type heaters.
978-1-4673-7894-9/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE
Said Dhimdi3 Saadeddine Said4
3
Department of Electromechanics 4
Departement of Physics
FST-Hassan II University
Brussels, Belgium Mohammedia, Morocco
There is no known case in the Moroccan poultry sector
were the earth-air heat exchanger is employed, it’s only used
in few residential buildings [2]. Some poultry houses only
use pad cooling and ventilation in hot periods, in cold periods
they use fuel boiler for heating and they improve insulation
by adding plastic.
The objective of this paper is to model and design an earth-
air heat exchanger and to evaluate possible saving in energy
consumption for a typical Moroccan poultry house.
II. EARTH-AIR HEAT EXCHANGER
A. Operating principle
The earth-air heat exchanger is a geothermal system, which
uses the energy of the ground to heat or cool the fresh air.
Depending on weather conditions, day and season, outside
air temperature undergoes strong variations. In contrast, the
ground temperature, a few meters below the surface, varied
slightly due to its high thermal inertia of the ground.
To make good use of this inertia we put in contact the
outside air with ground through buried tubes. The air from
the outside, moved by a fan, traverses the heat exchanger
tubes before being blown into the building.
The depth of the buried tubes should be approximately 2
meters to avoid unnecessary cost. The tube is nonmetallic
material; our study is based on the widely used polypropylene
(PP) and PVC.
B. Operating mode
There are three modes of operation for the earth-air heat
exchanger, depending on the season:
1) In winter: In winter, the outside air is heated during its
underground passage through the buried tubes.
2) In summer: In the summer, the outdoor temperature is
higher than the ground temperature. The outside air benefits
from this difference to be cooled down.
 Fig. 1. Earth-air heat exchanger principle.

Fig. 4. Tichelmann grid layout.

• The ground is a homogeneous medium with constant

physical properties.
The heat balance on a longitudinal control volume gives:
Ts − T
dq̇ = ṁcp dT = (1)
Rtot
Where ṁ the mass flow rate (kg/s), cp is the specific heat
capacity of air (J/kg.K), Ts is the soil temperature (K), and
Fig. 2. Circular layout. Rtot (2) is the inverse of the overall heat transfer coefficient
(m2.K/W).
The heat transfer occurs by convection inside tube and by
conduction through wall tube.
ln( D
0
Di )
o
1 R
Rtot = + = tot (2)
h̄Di dx 2kt dx dx
Where h̄ is the convection heat transfer coefficient (W/m2.K),
Di is the inner diameter of the tube (m), Do is the outer
diameter of the tube (m), dx is an elementary length of the tube
(m), and kt is the thermal conductivity of the tube (W/m.K).
The convection heat transfer coefficient is:
Fig. 3. Meander layout. N̄ uD kf
h̄ = (3)
Di
The Nusselt number is given by Colburn correlation [4]:
3) Mid-season: In mid-season, the outdoor temperature is
0.33
usually in an acceptable range and thus the system is not N̄ uD = 0.023Re0.8 Pr (4)
operating, air flows directly to the building without passing
through the tubes system. The Reynolds number is:
4ṁ
C. Earth tube heat exchanger layouts Re = (5)
πDi µf
The layouts of tubes depend on the available area. The
widely used ones are : circular layout, meanders (serpentines) The Prandtl number is:
and Tichelmann grid [3]. µf cp
Pr = (6)
kf
III. T HEORETICAL ANALYSIS
Where µf is the dynamic viscosity of air (Ns/m2), and kf is
The design of an earth-air heat exchanger is conditioned the thermal conductivity of air (W/m.K).
mainly by five parameters: the flow of air, the thermal From (1) and (2) the differential equation is:
properties of soil, physical properties of tube material, the
depth of burial of the tubes and the heat exchanger geometry. dT dx
= 0 (7)
Ts − T ṁcp Rtot
A. Heat transfer in a buried tube
The boundary conditions:
Assumptions: The boundary conditions needed to solve (7) are:
• The heat exchange is in a steady-state; The inlet condition
• The ground temperature is taken as constant. Tx=0 = Tin (8)
 TABLE I
The outlet condition EXTREME VALUE OF TEMPERATURE

Tx=L = Tout (9) Climatic zone Representative city Min temperature Max temperature
Z1 Agadir 1 46.2
The integration of (7) with the boundary conditions gives:
Z2 Tangier 0.3 38.9
 
L Z3 Fez -3.1 43
Tout − Ts − 0
= e ṁcp Rtot (10) Z4 Ifrane -2.24 27.8
Tin − Ts
Z5 Marrakech 0.3 45.3
The air temperature at the outlet of tube: Z6 Errachidia -3 41.1
 
L
− 0 TABLE II
Tout = Ts + (Tin − Ts )e ṁcp R
tot (11) SOIL TEMPERATURE

The heat transfer rate: Climatic zone Representative city Soil Temperature
Z1 Agadir 21.9
q̇ = ṁcp (Tout − Tin ) (12) Z2 Tangier 19.3
Z3 Fez 18.7
This model doesn’t take the phase change into consideration
Z4 Ifrane 12.1
due to its rarity under the studied conditions. The phase change
Z5 Marrakech 19.9
occurs by condensation due to the contact of warm air with
Z6 Errachidia 18
cold wall (dew point).

B. Pressure drop
A. Building description and indoor conditions
The calculation of pressure drop allows us to design
the earth-air heat exchanger by choosing the proper length, The earth-air heat exchanger will be designed to be
diameter of the tubes and the blower (fan) to be coupled with implemented in a typical poultry house. The indoor design
the said heat exchanger. conditions are given by ASHRAE (American Society of
The total pressure drop is the sum of linear losses and singular Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers) [2]
losses. recommendations:
◦
• Room temperature: 30 to 33 C, reducing 3K per week.
∆Ptot = ∆Plin + ∆Psin (13)
• Relative humidity: 50% to 80%
1) Linear losses: • Ventilation rate: 0.1 L/s per kilogram live mass during
winter and 1 to 2 L/s per kilogram for summer conditions
L ρV 2
∆Plin = f (14) B. Climate conditions in Morocco
Di 2
The climate in Morocco varied from city to another. The
The Colebrook’s equation [5]:
  climatic zoning approved by the National Agency for the
1 ε 2.51 development of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
√ = −2log10 + √ (15)
f 3.7Di Re f (NADREEE) divides Morocco into 6 climatic zones [6]. The
extreme values of temperature registered in the five last years
Where f is the friction factor, L is the length of the tube (m), are summarized in “TABLE. I” (Source: ashrae-meteo).
Di is the inner diameter of the tube(m), V is the velocity
(m/s), ε is the roughness of the tube (mm), and Re is Reynolds C. Soil temperature
number. The hypothetical value of soil temperature is the an-
2) Singular losses: The singular losses occur in: Tees, nual mean temperature [7]. The soil temperature of the
restrictions and Elbows. representative cities of the climatic zoning are summarized
V2 in “TABLE. II”.
∆Psin = ξρ (16)
2 V. SIMULATION AND RESULTS
Where ξ is constant coefficient depends on type of singularity, A. Simulation
ρ is the specific density of air (kg/m3), and V is the velocity 1) Modeling and meshing: The layout to be modeled is a
in (m/s). Tichlemann grid of 10 tubes. The length and diameter of each
tube is 30 m and 0.2 m respectively. The system was modeled
IV. METHODOLOGY
in ANSYS CFD software (Computational Fluid Dynamics)[8]
To evaluate the potential of heating and cooling the where a mesh of geometry is generated “Fig.5”.
dimensions of the earth-air heat exchanger were fixed to tubes 2) Solver : The CFD simulations were performed in Fluent
diameter of D=0.2m and tubes length of L=30m. The operating considering 2-D steady state, turbulent flow (k-epsilon model)
conditions are the weather conditions of the said city. and the energy equation.
 Fig. 5. Tube meshing.

Fig. 9. Pressure contour.

TABLE III
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES

Air density (kg/m3) 1.2

Air viscosity (N.s/m2) 18.46 × 10−6
Air conductivity (W/m.K) 0.0263
Fig. 6. Temperature contour for cooling mode. Tube conductivity(W/m.K) 0.28

Fig. 7. Temperature contour for heating mode.

Fig. 10. Temperature profil.

of theoretical analysis are solved for a PVC tube and with

Fig. 8. Velocity contour.
3) Boundary conditions: Air flow velocity of 2 m/s and air
temperature of 40◦ C and 1◦ C ( 40◦ C for cooling and 1◦ C for
heating mode) are used in inlet boundary conditions. A relative
pressure equal to zero atm in outlet boundary conditions. The
wall boundary condition at constant temperature which equal
to the soil temperature.
B. Results
The results obtained from CFD model are illustrated by
“Fig.6”, “Fig.7” and “Fig.8”. The contour temperature “Fig.6”
and “Fig.7” can explain the performance of the system; the air
temperature decreases about about 18 K when inlet tempera-
ture is 40◦ C and increases about 11 K when inlet temperature
is 1◦ C. In “Fig.8” the velocity contour is illustrated, the
flow has been distributed in all the tubes.This result confirms
the Tichlemann principle the same length of tube and equal
resistance flow.
constant physical properties “TABLE. III”.
The outlet temperature is 21.8◦ C for heating mode and
15◦ C for cooling mode. The analytical results are in agreement
with the CFD model.
VI. THE ENERGY GAIN
The energy gain in both summer and winter can be calcu-
lated by using the following equation:
EG = q̇Nh Nd (17)
Where q̇ is the heat transfer rate in KW (12), Nh is the number
of hours and Nd is the number of days. The results of the
energy gain are summarized in the “TABLE. IV”.
These results show that the maximum potential for heating
is for Fez and Ifrane, the minimum potential is for Tangier city.
The maximum for cooling is for Marrakech, the minimum is
for Ifrane.
Taking Errachidia city as an example the energy saving is:
EG = 14.7 ∗ 24 ∗ 31 = 10936.8Kwh (18)

The results obtained from analytical model are illustrated by This heating potential is the equivalent of 700 kg of butane
“Fig.10” for heating mode and cooling mode. The equations gas
 TABLE IV
OUTLET TEMPERATURE AND HEAT GAIN

City Inlet Temp Outlet Temp Heat

transfer(KW)
Agadir 46.2 26.15 15.4
1 18.24 13.3
Tangier 38.9 22.72 12.4
0.3 15.97 12.1
Fez 43 22.94 15.4
-3.1 14.88 13.8
Ifrane 27.8 22.93 3.7
-2.24 15.53 13.7
Marrakech 45.3 24.34 16.1
0.3 16.47 12.4
Errachidia 41.1 22.04 14.7
-3 14.33 13.3

VII. C ONCLUSION
The present study investigates the potential energy saving
for cooling and heating a typical poultry house using an earth-
air heat exchanger. The results showed that the air temperature
inside poultry houses located in different climate regions (six
representative cities) in Morocco could be lowered to below
26◦ C in hot period and heated up to above 14◦ C in cold period
which significantly reduces the impact of the heat/cold wave.
After the experimental validation of the approach, we will
target other applications using the same principal and approach
for the residential building.
Hybrid solution by using the solar absorption air-
conditioning system will be investigated. This will allow not
only a power economy, but also to be able to heat the building
during cold periods of the year.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to express their appreciation to
“The Institute of Research in Solar Energy and New Energies
(IRESEN)” for providing financial support to carry out this
research under the project “InnoTherm III Solar thermal
applications and solar technologies support”.
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