Numerical analysis of heat transfer characteristics in energy piles

Single energy pile is studied numerically by both commercial code (CFX 13.0) and open-source software (OpenFOAM). Both fluid and solid domains are simulated. The temperature distribution in the soil and fluid shows the consistency of the two software. Because of the high computational cost for the simulation of multiple piles, a simplification approach is proposed. The fluid temperatures are updated by iterative analytical calculation while the soil temperatures are simulated by conductive heat transfer equation using OpenFOAM. By this effort, the computation of the whole energy pile system is feasible. (© 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)