• 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.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.707-712
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• 2006

Knowing the ground thermal conductivity is very importnat in designing ground heat exchangers. Knowledge of the ground soil and rock composition information dose not guarantee the prediction of accurate thermal information. In Situ testing of ground heat exchangers is becoming popular. However, in situ testing are performed at construction sites in real life. Adequate data collection and analysis are not easy mainly due to poor power quality. Power fluctuation also causes the fluctuation of received data. The power quality must be maintained during the entire in situ testing processes. To accurately analyse the test data, the understanding of the response of the power fluctuation is essential. Testing under the power quality varied by tester is very difficult. Analyzing power variation by numerical simulation is a realistic option. By varying power in a sinosuidal manner, its effects on predicting thermal conductivity from thermal response plots made from the test data are examined.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Geothermal and Hydrothermal Energy
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.1-9
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• 2019

In a ground-source heat pump (GSHP) system, a vertical ground heat exchanger (GHE) is widely accepted due to a higher thermal performance. In the vertical GHE, grout (also called grouting material) plays an important role in the heat transfer performance and the initial installation cost of the GHE. Bentonite-based grout has been used in practice because of its high swelling potential and low hydraulic conductivity. This study evaluated the thermo-physical properties of the bentonite-based grouts through lab-scale measurements. In addition, we conducted performance simulation to analyze the effect of mixed ratio of grouts on the design length and thermal performance of the vertical GHE. The simulation results show that thermally-enhanced grouts improve the heat transfer performance of the vertical GHE and thus reduce the design length of GHE pipe.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.68-74
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• 2012

Investigation of the effective soil thermal conductivity($k$) is the first step in designing the ground loop heat exchanger(borehole) of a geothermal heat pump system. Another important factor is the borehole thermal resistance($R_b$). Thermal response tests offer a good method to determine the ground thermal properties for the total heat transport in the ground. The first step is measured for initial soil temperature. This is done by supplying a only pump power into a borehole heat exchanger. They need to supply into water unload heat power more than 30 minutes. In this study, the initial soil temperature was found to analysis $14.1{\sim}16.0^{\circ}C$,the ratio was 68.7% represented. In this case of $k$, was 2.1~3.0 $W/m{\cdot}k$, $R_b$ was 0.11~0.20 $m{\cdot}K/W$. In this work, it is also shown that the distribution of a soil thermal conductivity and borehole thermal resistance were on the influence of initial soil temperature. And soil thermal conductivity was related with factors of equation by linear least square method, borehole thermal resistance was on the influence of composite factors.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.389-398
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• 2013

Studies of the thermal properties of various rock types obtained from several locations in Korea have revealed significant differences in thermal conductivities in the thermal response test (TRT), which has been applied to the design of a ground-source heat pump system. In the present study, we aimed to compare the thermal conductivities of the samples with those obtained by TRT. The thermal conductivities of soil and rock samples were 1.32W/m-K and 2.88 W/m-K, respectively. In comparison, the measured TRT value for thermal conductivity was 3.13W/m-K, which is 10% higher than that of the rock samples. We consider that this difference may be due to groundwater flow because abundant groundwater is present in the study area and has a hydraulic conductivity of 0.01. It is natural to consider that the object of TRT is to calculate the original thermal conductivity of the ground, following the line source theory. Therefore, we conclude that the TRT applied to a domestic standing column type well is not suitable for a line source theory. To solve these problems, values of thermal conductivity measured directly from samples should be used in the design of ground-source heat pump systems.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.39 no.9
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• pp.5-11
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• 2023

In analyzing geotechnical structures, the analysis fields are becoming increasingly diversified. In particular, the need for predicting the thermal behavior of ground materials has become important in fields related to soil freezing. To ensure a reliable assessment of the freezing behavior of the ground, considering the variation in the effective thermal conductivity of soil specimens under various conditions is crucial. In this study, probe experiments were conducted by varying the porosity, initial degree of saturation, and read time settings of the meter. Next, the factors influencing the effective thermal conductivity of the frozen sandy soil were evaluated. The experimental results conducted under different porosity conditions showed a tendency for the effective thermal conductivity of frozen soil to increase as the specimen's porosity decreased. However, as the degree of saturation of the specimen increased, the effective thermal conductivity also increased. The sensitivity of the meter's read time setting to the measurement of effective thermal conductivity was observed. When the read time was set to 1 min, the measured values were in a range similar to that obtained in previous studies conducted in Korea with the same soil specimen.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.695-703
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• 2005

The objective of this study is to determine the effective thermal conductivity and thermal resistance values in test boreholes with three different fill materials. To evaluate these heat transfer properties, in-situ tests on four vertical boreholes were conducted by adding a monitored amount of heat to water over various test lengths. Two parameter estimation models, line-source and numerical one-dimensional models, for evaluation of thermal response test data were compared when applied on the same four data sets. Results show that the average thermal conductivity deviation between measured data and these two models is in the range of $3.03\%$ to $4.45\%$. The effect of increasing grout thermal conductivity from 1.34 to 1.82 $W/m^{\circ}C$ resulted in overall increases in effective formation thermal conductivity by $11.1\%$ to $51.9\%$ and reductions in borehole thermal resistance by $11.6\%$ to $26.1\%$.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.173-182
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• 2005

The Performance of U-tube ground heat exchanger for geothermal heat Pump systems depends on the thermal properties of the soil, as well as grout or backfill materials in the borehole. In-situ tests provide a means of estimating some of these properties. In this study, in-situ thermal response tests were completed on two vertical boreholes, 130 m deep with 62 mm diameter high density polyethylene U-tubes. The tests were conducted by adding a monitored amount of heat to water over a $17\~18$ hour period for each vertical boreholes. By monitoring the water temperatures entering and exiting the loop and heat load, overall thermal conductivity values of grout/soil formation were determined. Two parameter estimation models for evaluation of thermal response test data were compared when applied on the same temperature response data. One model is based on line-source theory and the other is a numerical one-dimensional finite difference model. The average thermal conductivity deviation between measured data and these models is of the magnitude $1\%$ to $5\%$.

• 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.