ON THE GROUND TEMPERATURE BELOW BUILDINGS

A transient, numerical model for the prediction of the ground temperat ure at various depths below buildings is presented in this paper. The proposed model was developed by calculating the heat how to the ground from a building, which depends on the complicated three-dimensional t hermal process in the ground. The main difficulties in obtaining manag eable solutions of the heat how problem were: The three-dimensionality of the thermal process, the strong temporal variability of the outdoo r temperature as well as the large number of parameters involved in de scribing the building foundation geometry as well as the thermal insul ation. The techniques of superposition and numerical analysis were use d to cope with these difficulties. The model was validated against exp erimental data and it was found that it could accurately predict the g round temperature under a building.