Study on Thermal Stress Occurred in Concrete Energy Pile During Heating and Cooling Buildings

The energy pile, used for both structural foundations and heat exchangers, brings about heat exchange with the ground formation by circulating a working fluid for heating and cooling buildings. As heat exchange occurs in the energy pile, thermal stress and strain is generated in the pile body and surrounding ground formation. In order to investigate the thermo-mechanical behavior of an energy pile, a comprehensive experimental program was conducted, monitoring the thermal stress of a cast-in place energy pile equipped with five pairs of U-type heat exchanger pipes. The heating and cooling simulation both continued for 30 days. The thermal strain in the longitudinal direction of the energy pile was monitored for a 15 operation days and another 15 days monitoring followed, without the application of heat exchange. In addition, a finite element model was developed to simulate the thermo-mechanical behavior of the energy pile. A non-linear contact model was adopted to interpret the interaction at the pile-soil interface, and thermal-induced structure mechanics was considered to handle the thermo-mechanical coupled multi-field problem.

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