• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2012

The thermal properties including volumetric heat capacity, thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, and diurnal and annual damping depths of 10 representative soil series of Korea were calculated using some measurable soil parameters based on the Taxonomical Classification of Korean Soils. The heat capacity of soils demonstrated a linear function of water content and ranged from 0.2 to $0.8cal\;cm^{-3}^{\circ}C^{-1}$ for dry and saturated medium-textured soil, respectively. A small increase in water content of the dry soils caused a sharp increase in thermal conductivity. Upon further increases in water content, the conductivity increased ever more gradually and reached to a maximum value at saturation. The transition from low to high thermal conductivity occurred at low water content in the soils with coarse texture, and at high water content in the other textures. Thermal conductivity ranged between $0.37{\times}10^{-3}cal\;cm^{-1}s^{-1}^{\circ}C^{-1}$ for dry (medium-textured) soil and $4.01{\times}10^{-3}cal\;cm^{-1}s^{-1}^{\circ}C^{-1}$ for saturated (medium/coarse-textured) soil. The thermal diffusivity initially increased rapidly with small increases in water content of the soils, and then decreased upon further increases in the soil-water content. Even in an extreme soil with the highest diffusivity value ($1.1{\times}10^{-2}cm^2s^{-1}$), the daily temperature variation did not penetrate below 70 cm soil depth and the yearly variation not below 13.4 m as four times of damping depths.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.32 no.2C
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• pp.69-77
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• 2012

In general, geothermal energy pile and horizontal ground heat exchangers are installed in shallower depths than conventional vertical ground coupled heat pumps. Consequently their heat exchange performance is strongly governed by thermal conductivity of soil layer. Previous studies have shown that the thermal conductivity of soil above ground water table significantly affects the heat exchange rate because of partially saturated condition in soil and consequent variation of soil thermal conductivity. This paper presents a study result on the prediction of thermal conductivity of weathered granite soils. For weathered granite soils sampled from 5 locations, thermal conductivity tests were conducted with varying porosity and degree of saturation. The existing thermal conductivity models in literatures appeared inappropriate to the weathered granite soils. Hence, an empirical equation was proposed in this paper and its validity was examined by applying it to thermal conductivity test results obtained for weathered granite soils in this study and from literatures.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Geothermal and Hydrothermal Energy
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.21-31
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• 2012

This paper reviewed and evaluated some of the commonly used prediction models for thermal conductivity of soils with the experimental data. Semi-theoretical models for two-component materials were found inappropriate to estimate the thermal conductivity of dry state soils. It came out that the model developed by Cote and Konrad gave the best overall prediction results for unsaturated soils available in the literature. However, it still needs to be improved to cover a wider range of soil types and degrees of saturation. In the present study, parametric analysis is also conducted to investigate the effect of soil type and moisture content on the horizontal ground heat exchanger design. The analysis shows that horizontal ground heat exchanger pipe length is reduced with the increase of soil thermal conductivity and water content. The calculation results also show that horizontal ground heat exchanger size can be reduced to a certain extent by using backfilling material with a higher thermal conductivity of solid particles.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.09a
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• pp.813-824
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• 2010

Thermal conductivity of soils is one of the most important parameters to design horizontal ground heat exchangers. It is well known that the thermal conductivity of soil is strongly influenced by its density and water content because of soil's particulate structure. This paper reviewed and evaluated some of the commonly used prediction models for thermal conductivity of soils with the experimental data available in the literature. Semi-theoretical models for two-component materials were found inappropriate to estimate the thermal conductivity of dry state sands. It came out that the model developed by Cote and Konrad gave the best overall prediction for unsaturated sands available in the literature. Also, a parametric analysis is conducted to investigate the effect of thermal conductivity and water content, soil type on the horizontal ground heat exchanger design. The analysis shows that a required pipe length for the horizontal ground heat exchanger is reduced with the increase of soil thermal conductivity and water content. The calculation results also show that the dimension of the horizontal ground heat exchanger can be reduced to a certain extent by using backfilling material with a higher thermal conductivity of solid particles.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.39 no.9
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• pp.5-11
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• 2023

In analyzing geotechnical structures, the analysis fields are becoming increasingly diversified. In particular, the need for predicting the thermal behavior of ground materials has become important in fields related to soil freezing. To ensure a reliable assessment of the freezing behavior of the ground, considering the variation in the effective thermal conductivity of soil specimens under various conditions is crucial. In this study, probe experiments were conducted by varying the porosity, initial degree of saturation, and read time settings of the meter. Next, the factors influencing the effective thermal conductivity of the frozen sandy soil were evaluated. The experimental results conducted under different porosity conditions showed a tendency for the effective thermal conductivity of frozen soil to increase as the specimen's porosity decreased. However, as the degree of saturation of the specimen increased, the effective thermal conductivity also increased. The sensitivity of the meter's read time setting to the measurement of effective thermal conductivity was observed. When the read time was set to 1 min, the measured values were in a range similar to that obtained in previous studies conducted in Korea with the same soil specimen.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.68-74
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• 2012

Investigation of the effective soil thermal conductivity($k$) is the first step in designing the ground loop heat exchanger(borehole) of a geothermal heat pump system. Another important factor is the borehole thermal resistance($R_b$). Thermal response tests offer a good method to determine the ground thermal properties for the total heat transport in the ground. The first step is measured for initial soil temperature. This is done by supplying a only pump power into a borehole heat exchanger. They need to supply into water unload heat power more than 30 minutes. In this study, the initial soil temperature was found to analysis $14.1{\sim}16.0^{\circ}C$,the ratio was 68.7% represented. In this case of $k$, was 2.1~3.0 $W/m{\cdot}k$, $R_b$ was 0.11~0.20 $m{\cdot}K/W$. In this work, it is also shown that the distribution of a soil thermal conductivity and borehole thermal resistance were on the influence of initial soil temperature. And soil thermal conductivity was related with factors of equation by linear least square method, borehole thermal resistance was on the influence of composite factors.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.125-130
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• 2015

Vehicles and UGV(Unmanned Ground Vehicle) need a variety of road informations, such as road profile, soil type and soil water contents, to run a cross country course. Especially, soil water contents are very important factor to judge the vehicle mobility, because it can change soil strength. This paper describes the real-time measuring method of soil water contents by using the soil thermal conductivity.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2000.03b
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• pp.548-555
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• 2000

It was investigated whether the waste polyethylene chips can be recycled as construction materials in geotechnical engineering field. The standard Proctor test, the hydraulic conductivity test, the large box direct shear test, the thermal conductivity test, the frost heaving test and the time domain reflectometry test were performed on weathered granite soil mixed with variable amount of the waste polyethylene chips. The experimental results showed that the hydraulic conductivity and the shear strength of weathered granite soil increase with increasing the amount of the waste polyethylene chips. On the other hand, the thermal conductivity, the amount of frost heaving and the unfrozen water contents of weathered granite soil decrease with increasing the amount of the waste polyethylene chips.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.5-14
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• 2013

Among the various thermal properties, thermal conductivity of soils is one of the most important parameters to design a horizontal ground heat exchanger for ground-coupled heat pump systems. It is well known that the thermal conductivity of soil is strongly influenced by its density and water content because of its particulate structure. This paper evaluates some of the well-known prediction models for the thermal conductivity of particulate media such as soils along with the experimental results. The semi-theoretical models for two-component materials were found inappropriate to estimate the thermal conductivity of dry soils. It comes out that the model developed by Cote and Konrad provides the best overall prediction for unsaturated sands available in the literature. Also, a parametric analysis is conducted to investigate the effect of thermal conductivity, water content and soil type on the horizontal ground heat exchanger design. The results show that a design pipe length for the horizontal ground heat exchanger can be reduced with an increase in soil thermal conductivity. The current research concludes that the dimension of the horizontal ground heat exchanger can be reduced to a certain extent by backfilling materials with a higher thermal conductivity of solid particles.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.173-182
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• 2005

The Performance of U-tube ground heat exchanger for geothermal heat Pump systems depends on the thermal properties of the soil, as well as grout or backfill materials in the borehole. In-situ tests provide a means of estimating some of these properties. In this study, in-situ thermal response tests were completed on two vertical boreholes, 130 m deep with 62 mm diameter high density polyethylene U-tubes. The tests were conducted by adding a monitored amount of heat to water over a $17\~18$ hour period for each vertical boreholes. By monitoring the water temperatures entering and exiting the loop and heat load, overall thermal conductivity values of grout/soil formation were determined. Two parameter estimation models for evaluation of thermal response test data were compared when applied on the same temperature response data. One model is based on line-source theory and the other is a numerical one-dimensional finite difference model. The average thermal conductivity deviation between measured data and these models is of the magnitude $1\%$ to $5\%$.