A novel steel-pipe energy pile is introduced, in which the deformed rebars for main reinforcing are replaced with steel pipes in a large diameter cast-in-place energy pile. Here, the steel pipes act as not only reinforcements but also heat exchangers by circulating the working fluid through the hollow hole in the steel pipes. Under this concept, the steel-pipe energy pile can serve a role of supporting main structures and exchanging heat with surrounding mediums without installing additional heat exchange pipes. In this study, the steel-pipe energy pile was constructed in a test bed considering the material properties of steel pipes and the subsoil investigation. Then, the thermal performance test (TPT) in cooling condition was conducted in the constructed energy pile to investigate thermal performance. In addition, the thermal performance of the steel-pipe energy pile was compared with that of the conventional large diameter cast-in-place energy pile to evaluate its applicability. As a result, the steel-pipe energy pile showed 11% higher thermal performance than the conventional energy pile along with much simpler construction processes.

A water source heat pump (WSHP) system is regarded as an energy-efficiency heating and cooling supply system for buildings due to its high energy efficiency and low greenhouse gas emissions. Recently, water sources such as river water, lake water, and raw water are attracting attention as heat sources for a heat pump system in Korea. This paper analyzed the applicability of a river water source heat pump system (RSHP). The river water temperature level was compared with the outdoor air and ground temperature levels to present applicability. In addition, the cooling and heating performance were compared through a simulation approach for the RSHP and a ground source heat pump (GSHP) applied to a large-scale office building. To compare the temperature level, the actual data were applied to the river water and the outdoor air, while the simulation results were applied to the ground circulation water. The results showed that the change in river water temperature throughout the year was similar to the change in outdoor air temperature. However, unlike the outdoor air temperature, the difference between the hourly and daily average river water temperatures was not large. The temperature level of river water was lower during the heating season and somewhat higher during the cooling season than that of the ground circulation water. Finally, the performance of the RSHP system was 13.4% lower than that of the GSHP system on an annual-based.