Gradient Based Soil Thermal Conductivity Optimization for Ground Source Heat Exchangers

Abstract

In geothermal heating and cooling, there exists an opportunity to improve the efficiency by utilizing non-uniform soil properties of a ground source heat exchanger during installation. This paper presents a gradient approach based upon finite element mathematics to determine an optimal distribution of heterogeneous soils with varying thermal conductivities. The numerically simulated case studies demonstrate the good performance of this algorithm to minimize the cross-talk of heat flux between pipes and maximize the overall efficiency.