• Journal of the Korean Society for Geothermal and Hydrothermal Energy
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.8-16
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• 2012

The use of energy pile foundation has been increased for economic utilization of geothermal energy. This paper describes an experimental and numerical study on thermal response tests (TRTs) using W and 3U-shaped ground heat exchangers (GHEs) in precast-high strength concrete (PHC) energy piles. Ground thermal conductivity and borehole thermal resistance were measured and compared with those numerical analysis. W-shpaed GHE showed higher heat transfer behavior than 3U-shaped one because of different conditions such as pile size and volume of grout. That is, ground thermal conductivity using W-shaped GHE was higher than that of 3U shaped GHE, and borehole thermal resistance vice versa. The relative error of borehole resistance values between numerical and analytical solution was less than 5%.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.5-15
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• 2012

In this study, a series of CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) numerical analyses were performed in order to evaluate the thermal performance of six full-scale closed-loop vertical ground heat exchangers constructed in a test bed located in Wonju. The circulation HDPE pipe, borehole and surrounding ground formation were modeled using FLUENT, a finite-volume method (FVM) program, for analyzing the heat transfer process of the system. Two user-defined functions (UDFs) accounting for the difference in the temperatures of the circulating inflow and outflow fluid and the variation of the surrounding ground temperature with depth were adopted in the FLUENT model. The relevant thermal properties of materials measured in laboratory were used in the numerical analyses to compare the thermal efficiency of various types of the heat exchangers installed in the test bed. The simulation results provide a verification for the in-situ thermal response test (TRT) data. The CFD numerical back-analysis with the ground thermal conductivity of 4 W/mK yielded better agreement with the in-situ thermal response tests than with the ground thermal conductivity of 3 W/mK.

• Transactions of the KSME C: Technology and Education
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.43-47
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• 2016

Ground source heat pump(GSHP) systems is known as environmental friendly and energy saving. Especially a ground heat exchanger is an important unit that determines the thermal performance of a system and initial cost. In design phase of vertical GSHP system, it is recommended that the effective borehole thermal resistance, be determined from in-situ thermal response test. In this study, ground effective thermal conductivity was categorized by a region. As a result of the study, the ground thermal conductivity of national average was analyzed as 2.56 W/mK. The highest regional average of thermal conductivity is 2.68 W/mK in Seoul, and the lowest is 2.28 W/mK in Busan. Also, the thermal conductivity on the coast has been analyzed approximately 30% lower than the average.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.512-520
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• 2020

Recently, the applications of the standing column well (SCW) ground heat exchanger (GHX) have increased significantly in Korea as a heat transfer mechanism of ground source heat pump systems (GSHP) because of its high heat capacity and efficiency. Among the various design and operating parameters, bleeding was found to be the most important parameter for improving the thermal performance, such as ground thermal conductivity and borehole thermal resistance. In this study, a bleeding analysis model was developed using the thermal response test data, and the effects of bleeding rates and bleeding locations on the thermal performance of anSCW were investigated. The results show that, when the ground water flows into the top of anSCW, the time variation of circulating water temperature decreased with increasing bleeding rate, and the ground thermal conductivity increases by as much as 179% with a 30% bleeding rate. When the ground water flows into the bottom of the SCW, the circulating water temperatures become almost constant after the increase in the beginning time because the circulating water exchanges heat with the ground structure before mixing with the ground water at the bottom.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.65-73
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• 2013

Ground-coupled heat pump system has attracted attention as a promising renewable energy technology due to its improving energy efficiency and eco-friendly mechanism for space cooling and heating. Pipes buried in the ground play a role of direct thermal interaction between circulating fluid inside the pipe and surrounding soils in the geothermal exchange system. However, both complexities of turbulent flow coupling thermal-hydraulic phenomena and very long aspect ratio of the pipe make it difficult to model the heat exchange system directly. Energy balance for fluid flow inside the pipe was derived to model thermal-hydraulic phenomena, and one-dimensional pipe element was proposed through Galerkin formation and time integration of the equation. Developed element is combined to pre-developed FEM code for THM phenomena in porous media. Numerical results of Thermal Response Test showed that line-source model overestimates equivalent thermal conductivity of surrounding soils due to thermal interaction between adjacent pipes and finite length of the pipe. Thus, inverse analysis for the TRT simulation was conducted to present optimal transformation matrix with utmost convergence.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.3401-3406
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• 2007

This study was performed to acquire the reliable in-situ thermal conductivity of closed type ground heat exchanger used in ground source heat pump. We selected four sites(Cheonan, Daejeon, Daegu, Gwangju) which are central area of South Korea. Test results show that the effective thermal conductivities are 2.33 W/m$^{\circ}C$, 2.50 W/m$^{\circ}C$, 2.75 W/m$^{\circ}C$ and 2.86 W/m$^{\circ}C$. From this data, we can see that thermal conductivity varies about the range of 23% with the sites. Also, thermal conductivity increases up to 20% by changing grouting material from low salica sand to high one.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.09a
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• pp.800-807
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• 2010

In this study, a series of numerical analyses has been performed in order to evaluate the performance of a full-scale closed-loop vertical ground heat exchanger constructed in Wonju. The circulation pipe HDPE, borehole and surrounding ground were modeled using FLUENT, a finite-volume method (FVM) program, for analyzing the heat transfer process of the system. Two user-defined functions (UDFs) accounting for the difference in the temperatures of the circulating inflow and outflow water and the change of the surrounding ground temperature with depth were adopted in the FLUENT model. The thermal properties of materials estimated in laboratory were used in the numerical analyses to compare the thermal efficiency of the cement grout with that of the bentonite grout used in the construction. The results of the simulation provide a verification of the in situ thermal response test data. The numerical model with the ground thermal conductivity of 4W/mK yielded the simulation result closer to the in-situ thermal response test than with the ground thermal conductivity of 3W/mK. From the results of the numerical analyses, the effective thermal conductivities of the cement and bentonite grouts were obtained to be 3.32W/mK and 2.99 W/mK, respectively.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.58-63
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• 2009

A ground-loop heat exchanger for the ground source heat pump system is the core equipment determining the thermal performance and initial cost of the system. The size and performance of the heat exchanger is highly dependent on the ground thermal properties - the ground effective thermal conductivity, the borehole thermal resistance and the undisturbed ground temperature. Nowadays, precast concrete piles using steel reinforced precast concrete piles - energy piles - are used to reduce the installing cost of the ground-loop heat exchanger. We were carried out some tests to investigate the effects of some parameters such as borehole length, grouting materials and U-tube configuration of the energy piles. 4 concrete piles, each measuring $250mm{\sim}400mm$ in diameter and approx. 10m in length, and rigged with single spiral and 3 U-tube loop of $16mm{\times}2.3mm$ PB piping. The thermal response tests were conducted using a testing device for 4-different ground-loop heat exchangers. During the heating period, the energy piles absorb the heat of 0.89kW to 1.37kW.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.24-30
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• 2016

Vertical and standing column well ground heat exchangers have mostly been installed for ground source heat pump systems (GSHP) and thermal response tests (TRT) have been applied to evaluate the thermal characteristics for these heat exchangers. In this paper, the TRT coupled with a line source method was applied to evaluate the thermal characteristics of the horizontal ground heat exchanger (HGHX). Load tests of a HGHX were also performed to examine the daily variations of the ground and fluid temperatures associated with the daily intermittent operation of GSHP. For this test, the straight HGHX (depth 2 m, length 50 m, 8 line) was installed in Ansan city. The results showed that the variations of ground thermal conductivity of HGHX during one year were relatively small with the range of $1.43{\sim}1.64W/m{\cdot}K$, and the maximum and minimum values appeared in December and May, respectively. Load tests with heat injection rate of 6.0 kW for 10 hours per day to HGHX during twelve days were performed in June, September and December, and resulted in a ground initial temperature rise of $4.31^{\circ}C$, $3.14^{\circ}C$, and $1.21^{\circ}C$ during these days, respectively.