Predicting Thermal Performance of an Olympic Standard Outdoor Swimming Pool

With the rising concerns about global warming and pollution produced by fossil fuels, there is a worldwide drive to incorporate renewable energy into current engineering designs. Commercial swimming pools are not immune to this trend, with a rising interest in geothermal heating systems that use deep underground drilling and heat exchangers to keep the water at a suitable temperature. This technology is more cost-effective and environmentally friendly than traditional pool temperatures maintenance methods such as solar heating and gas heaters. However, there are challenges when constructing a geothermal system since it must be appropriately scaled and built to fulfil the thermal heating requirements of the individual pool. Oversizing or under-sizing a geothermal system generally results in higher capital or operational expenses, rendering geothermal technology uneconomical. At UWA (The University of Western Australia), a model was created to predict pool heat loss using energy balances incorporating convection, evaporation, and radiation concerning local pool weather conditions. In Perth, Western Australia, the UWA model is now being used to investigate temperature and heating capacity in a 50 m outdoor pool. Comparing the UWA model to other industry-standard prediction models shows that the UWA model predicts pool data more accurately. Overall, the UWA model produced 79% of heat capacity prediction within ±25 kW, and 31% results being within ±0.5 °C of the actual measured pool water surface temperatures with the 2019 data set of Beatty Park Leisure Centre swimming pool.