• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.37-51
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• 2013

An energy pile encases heat exchange pipes to exchange thermal energy with the surrounding ground formation by circulating working fluid through the pipes. An energy pile has many advantages in terms of economic feasibility and constructability over conventional Ground Heat Exchangers (GHEXs). In this paper, a coil-type PHC energy pile was constructed in a test bed and its thermal performance was experimentally and numerically evaluated to make a preliminary design. An in-situ thermal response test (TRT) was performed on the coil-type PHC energy pile and its results were compared with the solid cylinder source model presented by Man et al. (2010). In addition, a CFD numerical analysis using FLUNET was carried out to back-analyze the thermal conductivity of the ground formation from the Ttype PHC energy RT result. To study effects of a coil pitch of the coil-type heat exchange pipe, a thermal interference between the heat exchange pipes in PHC energy piles was parametrically studied by performing the CFD numerical analysis, then the effect of the coil pitch on thermal performance and efficiency of heat exchange were evaluated. Finally, an equivalent heat exchange efficiency factor for the coil-type PHC energy pile in comparison with a common multiple U-type PHC energy pile was obtained to facilitate a preliminary design method for the coil-type PHC energy pile by adopting the PILESIM2 program.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.29 no.9
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• pp.31-41
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• 2013

The use of energy pile foundation has increased for economic utilization of geothermal energy. In particular, coil-shaped ground heat exchanger (GHE) is preferred to the conventional U-shaped exchanger to ensure better efficiency of heat exchange rate. This paper presents a numerical and experimental study on the heat transfer behavior of PHC energy piles. Field thermal performance tests (TPTs) were conducted for the PHC energy piles installed in a partially saturated weathered granite soil deposit, in which two types of GHEs were considered: W and coil shaped GHEs. Besides, three-dimensional finite element analyses were also conducted, and the results were compared with the experimental results. According to the results of TPT and numerical analyses, the coil shaped GHE showed 10~15% higher heat exchange rate than the W type GHE in the PHC energy piles.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.93-99
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• 2014

Use of geothermal energy has been increased for its economical application and environmentally friendly utilization. Particularly, for energy piles, a spiral coil type ground heat exchanger (GHE) is more preferred than line type GHEs such as U and W shaped GHEs. A PHC energy pile with spiral coil type GHE was installed in an area of partially saturated dredged soil deposit, and a thermal response test (TRT) was conducted for 240 hours under a continuous operation condition. Besides, remolded soil samples from different layers were collected in the field, and soil specimens were reconstructed according to the field ground condition. Non-steady state probe methods were conducted in the lab, and ground thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity were measured for the different soil layers. An equivalent ground thermal conductivity was calculated from the lab test results and it was compared with the field TRT result. The difference was less than 5%, which advocates the use of an equivalent ground thermal conductivity for the multi-layered ground. Furthermore, this paper also represents an equivalent ground thermal diffusivity evaluation method which is another very important design parameter.