Thermo-mechanical Schemes for Energy Piles

Author(s):  
Alessandro F. Rotta Loria ◽  
Lyesse Laloui
Keyword(s):  
Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 1190
Author(s):  
Tomasz Sliwa ◽  
Aneta Sapińska-Śliwa ◽  
Tomasz Wysogląd ◽  
Tomasz Kowalski ◽  
Izabela Konopka

The development of civilization, and subsequent increase in the number of new buildings, poses engineering problems which are progressively more difficult to solve, especially in the field of geotechnics and geoengineering. When designing new facilities, particular attention should be paid to environmental aspects, and thus any new facility should be a passive building, fully self-sufficient in energy. The use of load-bearing energy piles could be a solution. This article presents research on the cement slurry formulas with the addition of graphite and graphene, that can be used as a material for load-bearing piles. The proposed solution is to introduce U-tubes into the pile to exchange heat with the rock mass (the so-called energy piles). A comparison of four slurry formulas is presented: the first one consisting mainly of cement (CEM I), graphite, and water, and the remaining three with different percentages of graphene relative to the weight of dry cement. The results could contribute to the industrial application of those formulas in the future.


2021 ◽  
pp. 125802
Author(s):  
Zahraa Mohamad ◽  
Farouk Fardoun ◽  
Fekri Meftah

Author(s):  
E Watt ◽  
T Suckling ◽  
D Lennon
Keyword(s):  

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lazaros Aresti ◽  
Paul Christodoulides ◽  
Georgios A. Florides

<p>Shallow Geothermal Energy, a Renewable Energy Source, finds application through Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHPs) for space heating/cooling via tubes directed into the ground. There are two main categories of Ground Heat Exchanger (GHE) types: the horizontal and the vertical types. Ground Heat Exchangers (GHEs) of various configurations, extract or reject heat into the ground. Even though GSHP have higher performance in comparison to the Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHPs), the systems high initial costs and long payback period have made it unattractive as an investment. GSHP systems can also be utilized in the buildings foundation in the form of Thermo-Active Structure (TAS) systems or Energy Geo-Structures (EGS), with applications such as energy piles, barrette piles, diaphragm walls, shallow foundations, retaining walls, embankments, and tunnel linings. Energy piles are reinforced concrete foundations with geothermal pipes, whereby the buildings foundations are utilized to provide space heating and cooling. Apart from energy piles, another EGS system can be achieved by the incorporation of the building’s foundation bed as a GHE. Foundation piles are not required in all constructions, but a building’s foundation bed is mandatory. This configuration is still based on the principles of the energy pile.</p><p>Energy piles have yet to be applied in Cyprus and, thus, a preliminary assessment considered and investigated before application would be useful. The potential of the GSHP systems by utilizing the building’s foundation through energy piles is considered here, for a moderate climate such as Cyprus, towards a Zero Energy Building. Typical foundation piles geometry in Cyprus consists of a 10m depth, a 0.4m diameter and reinforced concrete as a grout material, which is used at the foundation bed of the building. A typical dwelling in Cyprus is selected to be numerically modelled in this study. It is a three-bedroom, two-storey house with a 190m<sup>2</sup> total floor area, matching the thermal characteristics of a Zero Energy Building (i.e., U-values of 0.4W/m<sup>2</sup>/K on all walls and ceiling and 2.25 W/m<sup>2</sup>/K on all doors and windows, respectively). A full-scale model is developed in COMSOL Multiphysics software, to examine the energy rejected or absorbed into the ground by taking the heating and cooling loads of the typical dwelling in Cyprus. The convection-diffusion equation for heat transfer is used with the three-dimensional conservation of heat transfer for an incompressible fluid on all domains except the pipes, where a simplified equation is used. Different months in winter and summer are accounted for the simulations and the fluid-in – fluid-out temperature difference is presented. Finally, an economic evaluation of the systems examined above is presented, in order to check its viability. It is concluded that utilizing the dwelling’s foundations can be a better investment than using GHEs in boreholes.</p>


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document