Analysis of Bearing Characteristics of Energy Pile Group Based on Exponential Model

Abstract

Energy piles are an emerging energy technology for both structural and thermal purposes. To support structure load, piles are always used in groups with raft; however, the cost and complexity of field tests and numerical modelling limits the research on the bearing characteristics of energy pile group. In this paper, exponential model was applied to simulate the thermo-mechanical soil-pile interaction of energy pile group. Axial load transfer (τ-z) analysis was first performed to calculate the shear stress distribution in the soil, then matrix displacement method was introduced to determine the thermo-mechanical response of energy pile group. The validity of the analytical model was tested against field tests and numerical results. A case study was further performed to analyze the influence of thermal cycles and arrangement of thermally active piles on the bearing response of the whole pile group. Test results show that with the thermally activated pile in pile group, (1) differential settlement increases with thermal cycle numbers; (2) the axial force of thermally active pile increases during heating process and decreases during cooling process, and this trend varies for the surrounding nonthermal piles; (3) induced load on thermal pile increases with thermal cycles, but decreases for nonthermal piles. The proposed analytical model is expected to serve as a simple and convenient alternative for the preliminary analysis on the bearing characteristics of energy group pile.