Thermal performance of thermo-active pile groups
Thermal performance of thermo-active pile groups
The thermal performance of thermo-active pile (TAP) groups, made up of TAPs with 900 mm diameter and 20 m length with double U-loop (2U) pipe arrangement and a pile spacing of four times the pile diameter is investigated using numerical analyses where heat exchanger pipes are modelled explicitly. In this paper, the operation of the TAPs is modelled with a constant heat flux and the thermal performance is quantified by the average change in temperature at the pile wall, which corresponds to the maximum change in temperature within the soil. The thermal performances of an infinitely large TAP group as well as a 3x3 TAP group are compared against that of a single TAP. It is shown that TAPs within a larger pile group are characterised by poorer thermal performance. This is a result of the thermal interference between the TAPs, where TAPs are heated up or cooled down by adjacent TAPs within the group. Such penalty on thermal performance is quantified in this research. Finally, a parametric study on the effects of soil thermal conductivity on the thermal performance of the 3x3 TAP group is presented, quantifying the impact of this property on the modelled thermal interference.
Ryan Yin Wai Liu; David M. G. Taborda
10th European Conference on Numerical Methods in Geotechnical Engineering (NUMGE2023)
13. Geo-energy & energy geotechnics
https://doi.org/10.53243/NUMGE2023-224
Contact Information
- Secretary General - Dr A M McNamara
- Email: [email protected]
- Phone: +44 20 7040 8154
- City, University of London
- Northampton Square
- London EC1V 0HB. United Kingdom