Analysis of energy pile groups subjected to non-uniform thermal loadings

Sequentially coupled thermal-stress finite element analyses were performed to investigate the mechanical behaviors of an energy pile group subjected to non-uniform thermal loadings.The group effect was highlighted by comparing the thermo-mechanical responses with those of the single pile case.Due to the thermal interactions between piles,the group piles’temperatures were higher than that of the isolated single pile.If only part of the piles served as heat exchangers,i.e.,the pile group was thermal loaded unevenly,there were dif-ferential deformations between the heated and the non-heated piles.Due to the pile-raft-pile interaction,the axial forces of the piles chan-ged significantly.The location of the heated pile had an important influence on the thermally induced axial force,while the effect of the soil’s coefficient of thermal expansion was not significant.Inspired by the numerical result,a simplified method was proposed to capture the main characteristics of energy pile groups and to facilitate the design.The proposed method was developed in the framework of the traditional load transfer approach,and the pile-raft-pile interaction was included.By applying different temperature increments to dif-ferent piles,the non-uniform thermal loading was modeled.The proposed method was verified by comparing with the finite element anal-ysis results and the data collected from the literature.

Probabilistic method for the size design of energy piles considering the uncertainty in soil parameters

Energy piles have attracted increasing attention as profitable solutions for the utilization of shallow geothermal energy.Although various complex geotechnical design models of energy piles have been proposed,a simplified sizing method that considers the uncertainty propagation in the soil is required.In this study,a Monte Carlo Simulation-based method was proposed for the size design of energy piles considering the uncertainty of parameters in the soil,such as thermal conductivity and friction angle.The small-sample analysis method of Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation combined with the Bayesian theoretical framework was developed to generate equiv-alent samples.Subsequently,the thermal response function and thermomechanical load transfer methods were employed to address the failure probability of the energy pile in the serviceability limit state and ultimate limit state.In addition,a case study was presented to illustrate the implementation of the proposed probabilistic sizing method.The analysis results of the case study confirm the necessity of modeling the soil uncertainty in the energy pile size design.

Investigation on thermo-mechanical behavior of reinforced concrete energy pile with large cross-section in saturated sandy soil by model experiments

Energy piles are a new type of heat exchange systems with buried pipes in a pile foundation,which optimize a ground source heat pump system for the utilization of shallow geothermal energy.In this study,based on the principle of similarity,the thermo-mechanical behavior of the model energy pile with a large cross-section in saturated sandy soil was experimentally evaluated.The pre-cast model concrete pile with a diameter of 0.2 m and length of 1.5 m was buried in saturated sand in a steel box with dimensions of 2.5 m×2.5 m×2.0 m(length×width×height).The pile was heated using water in the polyethylene(PE)pipe,which was connected to a water cycle temperature controller.At a constant inlet water temperature of 55℃,three thermal cycles were carried out with the same heating and cooling periods and different water flow rates.The temperature distributions in the pile and soil,in addition to the pore pressure,soil pressure,and displacement of the pile,were monitored to clarify the thermo-mechanical behavior of the pile and soil.The heat transfer efficiency was analyzed based on the temperature difference and water flow rates.The measured strain at different locations in the pile under cyclic thermal loading revealed that the uneven strain that developed in a pile body should be considered for its long-term application.Furthermore,focus should be directed toward the long-term unrecoverable displacement of the energy pile due to the thermal plastic strain and thermal consolidation of the soil.

Zoning operation of energy piles to alleviate the soil thermal imbalance of ground source heat pump systems

Energy piles have attracted increasing interest for application in ground source heat pumps,because it is environment-friendly,energy-efficient,and without additional drilling cost.However,when there is a large dif-ference between the heating and cooling loads,the system will suffer from a soil thermal imbalance which may further decline the system performance and even cause a system failure.A hybrid ground source heat pump sys-tem that integrates auxiliary equipment can solve the problem,however,it needs additional investment and a complicated control strategy.In this paper,the zoning operation of energy piles can effectively improve the tem-perature recovery ability of soil in the energy pile group and thus alleviate the soil thermal imbalance.Specifically,a heating-dominated residential building in Beijing is selected for a case study,with 144 energy piles arranged in a 12×12 layout.An analytical model of the spiral-coil energy pile group with seepage will be adopted,which can consider the groundwater flow,the geometry of spiral coils,and the thermal interaction among different energy piles,achieving high calculation accuracy and fast calculation speed.Based on this analytical energy pile model,a system model will be built to investigate the system performance influenced by different zoning operation strategies.Results show that intensive heat injection into the center of the pile group(Strategy 2 and Strategy 3)or heat extraction from the outer layer of the pile group(Strategy 4)can relieve the cold accumulation.Strategy 2 can relieve the outlet temperature decline from 5.54℃ to 4.46℃ and improve the heating COP from 3.297 to 3.423 compared to the conventional full operation strategy.Although the annual heat pump COP of Strategy 2 is a little lower than that of conventional full operation strategy,Strategy 2 has the shortest unmet heating or cooling time.Therefore,the proposed zoning operation strategy can achieve good system efficiency and excellent system reliability compared to the conventional strategy.

Numerical evaluations on the effects of thermal properties on the thermo-mechanical behaviour of a phase change concrete energy pile

Energy pile is a kind of economic and efficient geothermal utilization technology that the ground heat exchanger(GHE)used in ground source heat pump(GSHP)is embedded into building pile foundation to realize heat ex-change with surrounding soil.Adding phase change material(PCM)into the energy pile can not only reduce the temperature variation and thermal deformation range of energy pile,but also improve its energy storage and heat transfer performance.In this work,phase change concrete energy pile(PCCEP)is proposed by using PCM as a part of backfill material of energy pile.A three-dimensional numerical model is developed to find the influences of thermal properties of PCCEP on its thermo-mechanical behaviour.According to the model,the in-fluences of thermal conductivity,phase change latent heat(PCLE)and phase change temperature(PCT)on the thermal performance and mechanical characteristics of PCCEP are numerically investigated.It can be seen that for improving heat transfer performance of PCCEP,the thermal conductivity should be increased,but from the perspective of reducing change of pile displacement,axial force and side friction resistance,the thermal conduc-tivity should be reduced.Under heat release mode,lower PCT and larger PCLE contribute to the improvement of thermal performance of PCCEP,and accordingly the rise range of pile temperature,pile displacement change and pile thermal stress can all be reduced.The experimental validation on the model shows that the simulation values of pile wall middle temperature(PWMT)and pile top displacement are agreed well with the corresponding experimental results,the real-time relative error of PWMT and pile top displacement are respectively within 5.1 and 12%.

Thermomechanical properties of an energy micro pile-raft foundation in silty clay

Micro steel pipe pile was used for existing foundation reinforcement and renovation.An energy micro pile-raft foundation equipped with heat exchange tube was constructed in silty clay.The diameter and the length of the energy micro pile are 160 mm and 13.0 m,respectively.A series of in situ thermal performance tests were carried out by controlling cycle heating,in which the inlet and outlet water temperatures,flow rate,and thermomechanical properties of the energy micro pile were measured.Combined with a numerical simulation method,the thermomechanical stresses and displacement of the raft were also analyzed and discussed.The energy micro pile-raft foundation was also analyzed for different combinations of energy piles and nonenergy piles in the group.Results show that the micro pile-raft foundation can provide sufficient heat exchange compared with other types of ground heat exchangers.Differential settlement at both the pile top and tip were observed for the groups that contained both energy piles and nonenergy piles.