Experimental Study and Modelling of the Thermal Conductivity of Sandy Soils of Different Porosities and Water Contents

This paper at first reports an experimental work to test the thermal conductivity of formulated sandy soil specimens of different porosities and water contents. Both needle probe and hot-plate methods were conducted and compared. It has been confirmed that the needle probe method has a better accuracy for the measurement of unsaturated soil thermal conductivity, and that the pore size distribution plays an important role on unsaturated soil thermal conductivity. Secondly, it gives out an extensive review on the modelling work, and investigates two major types of empirical models in detail. Two generalized formulas have been suggested to mathematically characterise the two types of models and tested using the experimental data. Finally, in terms of the intrinsic relation to the pore size distribution and the similarity between the thermal conductivity and water retention characteristics of unsaturated soils, a soil water retention model has been suggested and tested to describe unsaturated soil thermal conductivity.

[1]  T. Kumada,et al.  Measurement of thermal conductivity of buffer materials and evaluation of existing correlations predicting it , 2002 .

[2]  A. Papritz,et al.  A Fractal Approach to Model Soil Structure and to Calculate Thermal Conductivity of Soils , 2003 .

[3]  Simon Tait,et al.  Effects of coolant flow rate, groundwater table fluctuations and infiltration of rainwater on the efficiency of heat recovery from near surface soil layers , 2015 .

[4]  W. Powrie,et al.  Thermal Conductivity of Simulated Soils by the Needle Probe Method for Energy Foundation Applications , 2014 .

[5]  D. Vries.  Thermal properties of soils , 1963 .

[6]  R. Belarbi,et al.  Methods and Results of Experimental Researches of Thermal Conductivity of Soils , 2013 .

[7]  John M. Niedzwecki,et al.  Modeling deepwater seabed steady-state thermal fields around buried pipeline including trenching and backfill effects , 2014 .

[8]  W. Leong,et al.  Advanced Geometric Mean Model for Predicting Thermal Conductivity of Unsaturated Soils , 2016 .

[9]  Robert Horton,et al.  An Improved Model for Predicting Soil Thermal Conductivity from Water Content at Room Temperature , 2007 .

[10]  Yu-Jun Cui,et al.  A study on the thermal conductivity of compacted bentonites , 2008 .

[11]  Miles S. Kersten,et al.  Laboratory research for the determination of thermal properties of soils , 1949 .

[12]  W. Woodside,et al.  Thermal Conductivity of Porous Media. I. Unconsolidated Sands , 1961 .

[13]  B. Cheng,et al.  Semi-analytical solution of roof-on-grade attached underground engineering envelope , 2008 .

[14]  Anil Misra,et al.  A Theoretical Model of the Thermal Conductivity of Idealized Soil , 1995 .

[15]  Mohamed Rouainia,et al.  An improved steady-state apparatus for measuring thermal conductivity of soils , 2014 .

[16]  Tissa H. Illangasekare,et al.  Thermal Conductivity of Sands under Varying Moisture and Porosity in Drainage–Wetting Cycles , 2010 .

[17]  R. D. Findlay,et al.  A new approach to underground cable performance assessment , 2008 .

[18]  M. Scholz,et al.  A physico-chemical model for the water vapour sorption isotherm of hardened cementitious materials , 2012 .

[19]  Shan Chen,et al.  Thermal conductivity of sands , 2008 .

[20]  J. Konrad,et al.  A generalized thermal conductivity model for soils and construction materials , 2005 .

[21]  Sujan P. Kulkarni,et al.  Shear Bonding and Thermal Properties of Particle-Filled Polymer Grout for Pipe-in-Pipe Application , 2007 .

[22]  W. Likos.  Pore-Scale Model for Thermal Conductivity of Unsaturated Sand , 2015, Geotechnical and Geological Engineering.

[23]  Roberto De Lieto Vollaro,et al.  Experimental study of thermal field deriving from an underground electrical power cable buried in non-homogeneous soils , 2014 .

[24]  L. Schiavi,et al.  Estimation of soil and grout thermal properties through a TSPEP (two-step parameter estimation proce , 2011 .

[25]  A. Revil,et al.  Thermal conductivity of unsaturated clay-rocks , 2008 .

[26]  D. Or,et al.  Adsorption and capillary condensation in porous media: Liquid retention and interfacial configurations in angular pores , 1999 .

[27]  Hugh Daigle,et al.  Thermal conductivity in porous media: Percolation‐based effective‐medium approximation , 2016 .

[28]  Yu Wang,et al.  A physical–chemical model for the static water retention characteristic of unsaturated porous media , 2008 .

[29]  W. Woodside,et al.  Thermal Conductivity of Porous Media. II. Consolidated Rocks , 1961 .

[30]  Ning Lu,et al.  Critical Review of Thermal Conductivity Models for Unsaturated Soils , 2015, Geotechnical and Geological Engineering.

[31]  Fleur Loveridge,et al.  Measuring soil thermal properties for use in energy foundation design , 2013 .

[32]  A. McGuire,et al.  The Effect of Moisture Content on the Thermal Conductivity of Moss and Organic Soil Horizons From Black Spruce Ecosystems in Interior Alaska , 2009 .

[33]  I. Sakaguchi,et al.  Thermal Conductivity of Standard Sands. Part III. Full Range of Saturation , 2013 .

[34]  Song-yu Liu,et al.  Thermal characterization and prediction model of typical soils in Nanjing area of China , 2015 .

[35]  Omar T Farouki,et al.  Thermal properties of soils , 1981 .

[36]  W. Likos,et al.  Comparison of Laboratory Methods for Measuring Thermal Conductivity of Unsaturated Soils , 2012 .

[37]  J. Šimůnek,et al.  Parameter estimation of soil hydraulic and thermal property functions for unsaturated porous media using the HYDRUS-2D code , 2014 .

[38]  E. Occhini,et al.  Soil thermal and hydrological characteristics in designing underground cables , 1979 .

[39]  Enric Vázquez-Suñé,et al.  GIS-supported mapping of low-temperature geothermal potential taking groundwater flow into account , 2015 .

[40]  Lyesse Laloui,et al.  Estimating the geothermal potential of heat exchanger anchors on a cut and cover tunnel , 2014 .

[41]  Maxime Tye-Gingras,et al.  Generic ground response functions for ground exchangers in the presence of groundwater flow , 2014 .

[42]  Dennes T. Bergado,et al.  Thermal conductivity of soft Bangkok clay from laboratory and field measurements , 2009 .

[43]  Boqi Xiao,et al.  Developing a novel form of thermal conductivity of nanofluids with Brownian motion effect by means of fractal geometry , 2013 .