Abstract
Geothermal energy piles are categorized as closed systems. Energy piles are a relatively new technology which couples the structural role of traditional pile foundations to that of heat exchangers to fulfill the required energy demand of buildings and infrastructures. These foundations are equipped with pipes embedded in the concrete forming the pile. While connected to a heat pump, the fluid circulating inside these pipes provides the exchange of heat with the ground for heating and cooling purposes. As the undisturbed temperature at the shallower depths of the ground stays comparatively constant the whole year, being warmer than the surrounding temperature in winter and cooler in summer, the capacities of ground thermal storage are beneficial for withstanding the process of cooling and heating. In this study, heat exchange between the pile foundations and rock is investigated. The behavior of such foundation as energy piles, which are governed by their response to thermo-mechanical loads, is presently not fully understood. The influence of different pipe configurations embedded in the pile is examined while the pile is embedded in two different rock types (limestone and sandstone). It has been observed that pipe configurations strongly affect the behavior of the energy piles. An increase in the axial distributions of vertical thermal stresses has been recorded when the pile equipped with double U-pipes is compared with that of the single U-pipe configuration. The maximum value of the axial distributions of the thermal vertical displacements was observed when the pile foundation equipped with double U-pipes was buried in the limestone.
Degree Date
Spring 2019
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.S.
Department
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Advisor
Usama El Shamy
Subject Area
Civil Engineering
Number of Pages
90
Format
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Recommended Citation
Sabi, Ehab, "Behavior of Geothermal Energy Piles Embedded in Rock" (2019). Civil and Environmental Engineering Theses and Dissertations. 3.
https://scholar.smu.edu/engineering_civil_etds/3
Included in
Civil Engineering Commons, Geotechnical Engineering Commons, Structural Engineering Commons
