Influence of backfilling phase change material on thermal performance of precast high-strength concrete energy pile

Ziming Cao, Guozhu Zhang, Yiping Liu, Xu Zhao and Chenglin Li

Renewable Energy, 2022, vol. 184, issue C, 374-390

Abstract: The use of phase change materials (PCMs) within the precast high-strength concrete (PHC) energy pile is relatively rare. A study concerning the thermal performance of the PHC energy pile backfilled with PCMs were performed to compare with conventional backfill materials. Field tests of the PHC energy pile were conducted. Then, different types of heat transfer numerical models for the PHC energy pile backfilled with water, ordinary grout, and PCMs were established, and the validities of models were confirmed by the field test data and other published studies. The following results are obtained from this study: (1) the thermal performances of the PHC energy pile backfilled with ordinary grout and PCM-type backfill materials (i.e., PCM, enhanced-PCM, and enhanced-PCM-1) are significantly greater than that backfilled with water under continuous operation; (2) intermittent operation has a larger influence on the heat exchange rate of PCM-type backfilled PHC energy pile than ordinary grout backfill material, and enhanced-PCM and enhanced-PCM-1 backfill materials generate higher heat exchange rates for the PHC energy pile than the ordinary grout under intermittent operation; (3) enhancements in the thermal properties of PCMs and intermittent operation both are important to improve the heat transfer performance of the PHC energy pile backfilled with PCMs, and the lower melting temperature of PCMs helps to enhance the thermal performance of PCM-type backfilled PHC energy pile in the cooling mode; and (4) under higher velocity of groundwater flow, ordinary grout backfill material is more suitable for the PHC energy pile compared with PCM-type backfill materials.

Keywords: PHC energy Pile; Thermal performance; PCM; Backfill material; Intermittent operation; Groundwater flow (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148121016918
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:184:y:2022:i:c:p:374-390

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2021.11.100

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().