Evaluation on Thermal Performance Along with Constructability and Economic Feasibility of Large-diameter Cast-in-place Energy Pile

Abstract

An energy pile is a novel type of ground heat exchangers (GHEX's) which sets up heat exchange pipes inside a pile foundation, and allows to circulate a working fluid through the pipe for exchanging thermal energy with the surrounding ground stratum. Using existing foundation structure, the energy pile can function not only as a structural foundation but also as a GHEX. In this paper, six full-scale energy piles were constructed in a test bed with various configurations of the heat exchange pipe inside large-diameter cast-in-place piles, that is, three parallel U-type heat exchangers (5, 8 and 10 pairs), two coil type heat exchangers (with a 500 mm and 200 mm pitch), and one S-type heat exchanger. During constructing the energy piles, the constructability of each energy pile was evaluated with consideration of the installation time, the number of workers and any difficulty for installing. In order to evaluate the thermal performance of energy piles, the thermal performance tests were carried out by applying intermittent (8 hours operating-16 hours pause) artificial cooling operation to simulate a cooling load for commercial buildings. Through the thermal performance tests, the heat exchange rates of the six energy piles were evaluated in terms of the heat exchange amount normalized with the length of energy pile and/or the length of heat exchange pipe. Finally, the economic feasibility of energy pile was evaluated according to the various types of heat exchange pipe by calculating demanded expenses per 1 W/m based on the thermal performance test results along with the market value of heat exchange pipes and labor cost.