Thermal response test data of five quadratic cross section precast pile heat exchangers

This data article comprises records from five Thermal Response Tests (TRT) of quadratic cross section pile heat exchangers. Pile heat exchangers, typically referred to as energy piles, consist of traditional foundation piles with embedded heat exchanger pipes. The data presented in this article are related to the research article entitled “Comparing heat flow models for interpretation of precast quadratic pile heat exchanger thermal response tests” (Alberdi-Pagola et al., 2018) [1]. The TRT data consists of measured inlet and outlet temperatures, fluid flow and injected heat rate recorded every 10 min. The field dataset is made available to enable model verification studies

An Experimental and Numerical Case Study of Passive Building Cooling with Foundation Pile Heat Exchangers in Denmark

Technologies for energy-efficient cooling of buildings are in high demand due to the heavy CO2 footprint of traditional air conditioning methods. The ground source heat pump system (GSHP) installed at the Rosborg Gymnasium in Vejle (Denmark) uses foundation pile heat exchangers (energy piles). Although designed for passive cooling, the GSHP is used exclusively for heating. In a five-week test during the summer of 2018, excess building heat was rejected passively to the energy piles and the ground. Measured energy efficiency ratios are 24–36 and the thermal comfort in conditioned rooms is improved significantly relative to unconditioned reference rooms. A simple model relating the available cooling power to conditioned room and ground temperatures is developed and calibrated to measured test data. Building energy simulation based estimates of the total cooling demand of the building are then compared to corresponding model calculations of the available cooling capacity. The comparison shows that passive cooling is able to meet the cooling demand of Rosborg Gymnasium except for 7–17 h per year, given that room temperatures are constrained to < 26 °C. The case study clearly demonstrates the potential for increasing thermal comfort during summer with highly efficient passive cooling by rejecting excess building heat to the ground

Numerical investigation on the thermo-mechanical behavior of a quadratic cross section pile heat exchanger

Pile heat exchangers are traditional foundation piles with built in heat exchangers. As such, the footing of the building both serves as a structural component and a heating/cooling supply element. The existing geotechnical design standards do not consider the nature of thermo-active foundations and, therefore, there is a need to develop guidelines to design them properly. This paper contributes by studying the thermo-mechanical behavior of the precast piles which are 15-meter long and have a quadratic cross section and a W-shape pipe heat exchanger. This article aims to numerically assess the additional changes in the pile load transfer generated by its heating and cooling. In addressing this objective, a preliminary multi-physical finite element analysis is conducted which serves as a tool for exploring: i) the thermally induced mechanical stresses within the concrete and on the pile-soil axial and shaft resistances; ii) the maximum upward/downward displacements. A one-year time span is considered under operational and extreme thermal boundary conditions. The results show that a typical geothermal utilization of the energy foundation does not generate significant structural implications on the geotechnical capacity of a single energy pile. However, ground thermal loads need to be considered in the design phase to account for potential extreme temperature changes, which could generate thermal stresses that equalize the mechanically generated ones