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Thermal stresses in borehole heat exchangers
Author(s) -
Erol Selçuk,
François Bertrand
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
international journal for numerical and analytical methods in geomechanics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.419
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1096-9853
pISSN - 0363-9061
DOI - 10.1002/nag.2373
Subject(s) - grout , materials science , borehole , heat exchanger , thermal , ultimate tensile strength , thermal conductivity , cracking , composite material , geotechnical engineering , mechanics , geology , thermodynamics , engineering , mechanical engineering , physics
Summary The backfilling materials of borehole heat exchangers (BHE), particularly the grout material, must provide a suitable thermal contact and ensure durability to the induced thermal stresses because of the heat loading. In this paper, the thermal stresses that occurred in BHEs because of heat injection or extraction is investigated with an analytical solution of a hollow cylinder model that is adapted for time‐dependent heat loading, the geometry of a BHE, and the thermo‐mechanical properties of surrounding ground conditions. Firstly, the hollow cylinder model is solved with the considered boundary conditions in 2D plane stress. Secondly, the temperature differences at the inner and outer circles of the cylinder are evaluated with the heat line source models for continuous and discontinuous loading to observe the impact of the heat loading schedule. The developed analytical solution for thermal stress investigation is validated with numerical models. It is demonstrated that the analytical solutions agree well with numerical results for two types of BHE configurations (co‐axial and single U‐shaped pipes). Furthermore, the calculated maximum stresses are compared with the tensile strength of grout materials obtained from Brazilian tests. It is predicted that the thermal contraction of the grout, partially constrained by the surrounding rock, generates tensile stresses that may lead to cracking in the BHE. According to the results, the stiffness of rock has a primary role on the developed tensile stresses, and the relationship between the thermal conductivity of the ground and of the grout induces a proportional impact on the magnitude of thermal stresses. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.