[h.mortezaee]

hi everyone i am simulating a borehole thermal storage , 4 u pipe that are connecting to each other in series form , each of them are 42 m deep in ground (ground is cylinder in 50 m diameter and 60 meter depth ) and water flows in them , i am trying to calculate how much heat is dumped and extracted from ground in a whole year , the inlet temperature is calculated by udf from the calculated outlet temp and the building load and heat pump cop , now my question is this : since the flow in pipes are converged within 5 times steps and i want to simulate a large domain of ground in a whole year is it okay to make the time step as big as 3600 secs ?
note that my building load is hourly .

[JulioSaphire]

I wanted to chime in on your post about simulating a borehole thermal storage system. I don't know much about this kind of work. But now I'm applying to be an engineer, and I think that in a couple of years I'll be able to know more about this kind of work. But maybe experts will already be able to give me some advice?

[LeanDeva]

Your project sounds really interesting! I think it's great that you're trying to calculate how much heat is dumped and extracted from the ground in a whole year. I'm not an expert in thermal simulations, but I think using smaller time steps is generally advisable for more accurate results. However, I understand that simulating a large domain of ground for a whole year can be computationally expensive. You might want to look into api 8c inspection services and maybe speak to a professional. Anyway, if you've done some testing and found that a time step of 3600 seconds gives you acceptable results, then it should be okay to use it.