Soil thermal conductivity dataset

<p>Soil thermal conductivity (STC) is required parameter for coupled water and heat transport for land surface models. However, unlike soil hydraulic properties, no global dataset is available for STC. The objective of this study was to collate literature data and to take new measurements in order to establish a big STC dataset that would facilitate the evaluation and development of STC models. We collected over 8000 STC measurements made on over 400 soil types around the world following rigid filtering criteria and processes. All the STC data in the dataset were based on transient-heat-flow methods (e.g., non-steady-state method, line-heat source, needle probe, thermal probe, dual and single probe heat pulse method, thermo-time domain reflectometry). Each soil contains at least five water contents in addition to known soil physical properties such as texture and bulk density. This presentation will give a brief introduction about the STC dataset as well as call for contributions to it.</p>

Evaluating Variability of Ground Thermal Conductivity within a Steep Site by History Matching Underground Distributed Temperatures from Thermal Response Tests

The variability of ground thermal conductivity, based on underground conditions, is often ignored during the design of ground-source heat pump systems. This study shows a field evidence of such site-scale variations through thermal response tests in eight borehole heat exchangers aligned at a site on a terrace along the foothills of mountains in northern Japan. Conventional analysis of the overall ground thermal conductivity along the total installation length finds that the value at one borehole heat exchanger is 2.5 times that at the other seven boreholes. History matching analysis of underground distributed temperature measurements generates vertical partial ground thermal conductivity data for four depth layers. Based on the moving line heat source theory, the partial values are generally within a narrow range expected for gravel deposits. Darcy velocities of groundwater are estimated to be 74–204 m/y at the borehole with high conductivity, increasing in the shallow layers above a depth of 41 m. In contrast, the velocities at the other seven boreholes are one-to-two orders of magnitude smaller with no trend. These high and low velocity values are considered for the topography and permeability. However, the relatively slow groundwater velocities might not apparently increase the partial conductivity.

Research on heat transfer characteristics and borehole field layout of ground heat exchangers to alleviate thermal accumulation with groundwater advection

The heat transfer performance of ground heat exchanger is significant to the ground source heat pump. The soil thermal parameters, the groundwater advection and the different borehole field layout are important factors to affect the performance of ground heat exchanger. Therefore, the influence of groundwater advection velocity, soil physical parameters and different borehole field layout on the soil temperature distribution and evolution around the ground heat exchanger has been analyzed and studied with unbalanced seasonal thermal load based on the moving finite line heat source model with groundwater advection. The results show that the heat accumulation is easy to occur as the time develops when the groundwater advection is taken into consideration. No matter what type of geological condition is employed, a reasonable borehole field layout can effectively avoid heat accumulation problems under the condition of keeping the same amount boreholes without changing the original ground area. The borehole field layout dispersed along the center line of the advection and concentrated in the advection downstream relatively can effectively reduce the heat accumulation.