Analytical solution and process analysis of energy pile’s heat transfer rate

Abstract

With the ever-increasing energy demand and implications of climate change, the use of energy piles to absorb shallow geothermal energy to regulate room temperature of buildings is considered the best sustainable energy technology, especially in China, and the use of this technology is becoming increasingly popular. At present, studies generally uses the temperature field to analyze the heat transfer performance of the energy pile, which cannot represent the heat transfer rate distribution intuitively. In this study, we used mathematical models to provide an analytical solution to determine the heat transfer rate distribution between the energy pile and surrounding soil. Analysis of the heat transfer process of concrete piles in clay showed that the difference in thermal properties between the energy pile and the surrounding soil affected the whole heat transfer process, especially in the initial stage. The time required to reach the quasi-steady state mainly depended on the pile’s volume heat capacity, the thermal diffusivity of the pile and the surrounding soil. In engineering practice, to enhance the heat transfer performance of energy piles, the following measures can be taken: reduce the difference in thermal properties between the energy pile and surrounding soil and increase the distance between energy piles to improve the heat transfer conditions.