Thermo-mechanical behaviour of energy piles in overconsolidated clay under various mechanical loading levels and thermal cycles

Xuanming Ding, Dingxin Zhang, Abdelmalek Bouazza, Chenglong Wang and Gangqiang Kong

Renewable Energy, 2022, vol. 201, issue P1, 594-607

Abstract: Energy pile foundations play the dual role of providing structural support to buildings and acting as heat exchanger units. Thus, they are subjected to different mechanical loads from the buildings and the cyclic temperature changes encountered in optimized hybrid systems. However, the effects of mechanical loading levels on the thermo-mechanical behaviour of energy piles under cyclic temperature changes are still to be investigated fully. This paper fills this knowledge gap through a series of model scale tests where the effects of different mechanical loading levels were investigated over multiple cooling-heating cycles in over-consolidated saturated clay. In this respect, ten cooling-heating cycles were applied while the pile's head load was maintained at 0, 25%, and 50% of the pile's ultimate bearing capacity, respectively. After ten thermal cycles, the pile's normalized settlement reached 0.05%, 0.37%, and 1.19%, respectively. The ultimate bearing capacity was 555 N, 535 N, and 520 N, respectively. The results indicate that the increase in load levels exacerbates the irreversible settlement while reducing the bearing capacity of the piles. Moreover, it also affects the stress distribution within the pile and further develops internal tension. The results from this study can be used for qualitative analysis of energy pile design.

Keywords: Energy pile; Mechanical loading; Thermal cycles; Thermo-mechanical responses; Saturated clay (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148122016305
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:201:y:2022:i:p1:p:594-607

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2022.10.128

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 ().