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Geothermal Pavements: An Experimental and Numerical Study on Thermal Performance

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Finding Solutions of the 21st Century Transportation Problems Through Research and Innovations (GeoChina 2021)

Part of the book series: Sustainable Civil Infrastructures ((SUCI))

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Abstract

One of the greatest challenges society faces today is the provision of clean and renewable energy to both meet the over-growing energy demand and reduce our carbon footprint. Ground source heat pump (GSHP) systems can efficiently heat and cool buildings using shallow geothermal energy and can therefore contribute towards the above goals. Significant attention has been given to energy geo-structures in the last few years, that is, using subsurface structures to exchange heat with the ground. Thus, these geo-structures provide structural support and thermal energy. The majority of literature relating to energy geo-structures focuses on piles, but only limited research exists on geothermal pavements. This work developed a detailed 3D finite element (FE) model to explore the thermal performance of geothermal pavement systems. This 3D FE model has been successfully validated against a full-scale experimental test undertaken in Adelaide, South Australia. The validated model is then used to evaluate the long-term performance of geothermal pavement systems under both a traditional system configuration and as a hybrid system configuration. The performance of the geothermal pavement system is analysed under three thermal loading cases including balanced, heating dominated and, cooling dominated cases, showing the potential and identifying possible limitations for geothermal pavements.

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Acknowledgements

Funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) (project number LP170100072) and the University of Melbourne is much appreciated. Moreover, the fifth and sixth authors would also like to acknowledge the support from the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), Thailand, under Chair Professor program (P-19-52303). Assistance from the City of Mitcham (SA), Dr Mahdi Disfani and Mr Ramin Raeesi in the fieldwork is much appreciated.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia

    Xiaoying Gu, Nikolas Makasis, Yaser Motamedi & Guillermo A. Narsilio

  2. Engineering Department, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Nikolas Makasis

  3. Department of Civil and Construction Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

    Arul Arulrajah

  4. School of Civil Engineering, and Center of Excellence in Innovation for Sustainable Infrastructure Development, Suranaree University of Technology, Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand

    Suksun Horpibulsuk

Authors
  1. Xiaoying Gu
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  2. Nikolas Makasis
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  3. Yaser Motamedi
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  4. Arul Arulrajah
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  5. Suksun Horpibulsuk
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  6. Guillermo A. Narsilio
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Guillermo A. Narsilio .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Civil Engineering, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AR, USA

    Zahid Hossain

  2. Civil Engineeeing, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

    Musharraf Zaman

  3. School Highway, Chang’an University, Xian, China

    Jiupeng Zhang

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Gu, X., Makasis, N., Motamedi, Y., Arulrajah, A., Horpibulsuk, S., Narsilio, G.A. (2021). Geothermal Pavements: An Experimental and Numerical Study on Thermal Performance. In: Hossain, Z., Zaman, M., Zhang, J. (eds) Finding Solutions of the 21st Century Transportation Problems Through Research and Innovations. GeoChina 2021. Sustainable Civil Infrastructures. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79638-9_6

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