MONITORING AND SIMULATION OF THE THERMAL PERFORMANCE OF SOLAR HEATED OUTDOOR SWIMMING POOLS

Based on detailed measurements of two outdoor swimming pools (at Leonberg and Mohringen) a computer model has been developed and validated for the simulation of the thermal behaviour of such pools. The subroutine is compatible to TRNSYS 13.1. Correlations for the heat losses due to evaporation, convection, and radiation were taken from literature and tested in the model. It was not possible to select one optimal correlation for the description of the evaporative heat losses of both swimming pools due to the different exposure to wind. Using the most suitable correlation for the evaporative heat losses of each pool allowed for the simulation of the pool temperature with less than 0.5 K standard deviation between measured and simulated temperature. The major problem was the measurement of the relevant wind speed to be used in the correlations describing the evaporative heat losses under real outdoor conditions. A method is described detailing how to calibrate the model using the heating energy requirement and the measured pool temperature during actual operation periods. The analysis of the measured data of two different outdoor swimming pools under the same climatic conditions showed differences of a factor 2 and more in the heat demand per unit pool area. This was mainly caused by the difference in local wind speed which differed by more than a factor 4. The two pools investigated were heated by solar energy with a fraction of 28% and 14%, respectively, and the seasonal efficiency of the solar systems was 37.7% and 33.4%. Simulations show that a reduction of the water temperature from 24-degrees-C to 22-degrees-C during periods with low outdoor temperatures and few visitors, reduces the fuel consumption to less than half and increases the solar fraction from 28% to 50% in one pool.