Analytical modelling of transient heat transfer

This chapter focuses on the analysis of the heat transfer phenomena characterising energy geostructures in a time-dependent framework that is representative of transient conditions. Analytical approaches to model heat transfer at both relatively long and short-to-medium timescales, around and within geothermal heat exchangers such as energy geostructures, respectively, are presented. The developments proposed in this chapter can characterise, together with the time-independent analytical solutions treated in Chapter 8, Analytical modelling of steady heat and mass transfers, many heat transfer problems involved with the operation of energy geostructures. Although more approximate than the numerical methods treated in Chapter 12, Numerical modelling of energy geostructures, the proposed analytical approaches can be considered powerful tools for the thermohydraulic analysis of energy geostructures.