Thermo-Mechanical Response of Energy Pile in Dry Sand

One of the major challenges for development is to manage the energy demand and supply nexus. Rising demand of fossil fuel produces the greenhouse gases at higher rate, which causes a significant change in the climatic condition. Nowadays, air-conditioning of superstructure demands significant amount of carbon-related energy sources, which are harmful and non-renewable. In this regard, geothermal energy pile can be utilized as renewable energy for air-conditioning of building as worthy of investment and development. This novel concept can be used to exploitable thermal energy at shallow depth of earth and reduce the carbon emission to atmosphere. Therefore, in this study the thermo-mechanical response of concrete pile having fluid-carrying pipe has been analyzed by finite element method through thermal and mechanical loading. The effect of thermal cycle on pile, temperature distribution in surrounding soil, displacement of pile head and toe are studied. The results showed that the displacement of pile followed the temperature variation. Moreover, geothermal energy piles when heated show more displacement than piles subjected to only mechanical loading.