Energy Geotechnics – Wuttke, Bauer & Sánchez (Eds)

© 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-1-138-03299-6

A laboratory investigation on the thermo-mechanical

behaviour of thermal piles in sand

A. Rafiei & C. Arya

University College London, London, UK

S.W. James
Cranfield University, Cranfield, UK

R.G. Correia
University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

R. Fuentes
University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

ABSTRACT: This paper reports on an investigation on the behaviour of base and shaft resistant piles embedded
in sand subject to heating and cooling cycles. It describes the 1 g laboratory model developed at University
College London. The test pile consists of a hollow stainless steel tube which is instrumented using Fibre Bragg
Grating (FBG) sensors that allow measurement of strain and temperature profiles along the pile length and the
surrounding soil. The pile is subjected to two heating-cooling cycles. Water held at 50◦ C is circulated inside
the pile for 24 hours; this is followed by a 24-hour cooling period during which the temperature of the water
is allowed to fall back to ambient conditions. The results show that small irreversible settlements occurred
during this period. Additionally, it is found that the degree of freedom varies between 0.9 and 1.0 which indicate
low levels of restraint are present. Nevertheless, considerable axial load and axial stress is induced in the pile.
Moreover, significant shaft friction is mobilized during both heating and cooling periods.

1 INTRODUCTION may compromise the safety of piles. Normally, to avoid

Thermal piles are a newly developed technology which
not only provide structural support but also allow heat
at shallow depths in the soil to be extracted from the
ground during cold periods and excess heat from the
overlying structure to be deposited in the ground dur-
ing warm spells. This is achieved by circulating fluid
through pipes embedded in the pile. If the temper-
ature of the circulated fluid is lower than the soil,
the fluid will absorb heat from the soil which can be
subsequently recovered via a heat pump and used for
heating. Alternatively, if the temperature of the fluid
is higher than the surrounding soil, the ground can
be used as a heat sink. Thermal piles are increas-
ingly being used in major projects worldwide for
heating and cooling purposes. However, despite the
increasing number of installations, evidence of their
thermo-mechanical performance is still rather limited.
The research on thermal piles is mainly divided into
2 subjects: heat transfer within the pile and the sur-
rounding soil and thermo-mechanical behaviour under
combined loading conditions. The work reported in
this paper addresses the later subject. Thermal loading
induces additional strains and hence increases axial
loads and stresses on the pile. These additional stresses
the risk of failure, higher safety factors are used by
designers.
A significant amount of the research on thermal
piles has been carried out in the field by a num-
ber of authors, most notably Laloui et al. (2006) and
Bourne-Webb et al. (2009). However, in-situ tests are
expensive, time consuming and also it is difficult to
ascertain boundary conditions. Therefore, laboratory
tests were used in this work. A 1 g small scale model
was designed and developed to perform a series of
monotonic and cyclic mechanical only, thermal only
and thermo-mechanical loading tests. Due to space
limitations, this paper only presents the results of the
thermal only tests. Fibre Bragg Gratings (FBG), a type
of point based fibre optic sensor, are used to monitor
strain and temperature changes along the pile surface
and inside the soil bed. Further details of the apparatus
and test procedure are presented below.
2 APPARATUS
An apparatus capable of assessing the behaviour
of both shaft resistant and base resistant piles is
developed. The tank is made from a 3 mm-thick steel

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sheet with an outer diameter and height of 500 mm. A
polished round tube made of grade 304 stainless steel
with an external diameter of 28 mm and height and
wall thickness of 535 mm and 1.5 mm respectively is
used to model the pile. The bottom of the model pile is
capped by welding a base plate also of grade 304 stain-
less steel in order to allows water to be circulated inside
the pile. For the shaft resistant test, the toe of the pile
passes through a hole in the container base. Container
and pile dimensions are chosen to make sure that the
results obtained are not being affected by the boundary
conditions. In the literature, the ratio between the pile
diameter and the container diameter is chosen as a fac-
tor to minimize these boundary effects. As such, the
ratio between the diameter of the container and model
pile is 17.85 which lies near the limits specified by
Parkin & Lunne (1982). Another boundary condition
is introduced by Al-Mhaidib & Edil (1998), namely
zone of influence, and determined that this is between
3D-8D for a pile installed in sand: this limit is also
comfortably met in this test. Figure 1. Shaft resistant pile set-up.
The soil used in this study is a poorly graded uni-
form fine sand with a uniformity coefficient of 2.32
and a median grain size of D50 = 0.18 mm. The aver- sensors an accurate monitoring tool. The main rea-
age specific gravity is 2.64 gr/cm3 and the maximum son for using FBG in this study is the multiplexing
and minimum dry densities are 1.658 and 1.349 gr/cm3 potential of FBG sensors where several sensors can
respectively. A relative density of 57.6% is measured be fabricated on a single fibre which reduces required
in all tests which classifies it as medium dense. The space for the installation of fibres. In this study, two
size of the sand grains in the reduced scale model is set of fibres each with 5 FBG sensors were fabri-
not scaled down with the rest of the system. Several cated at Cranfield University to monitor temperature,
recommendations are found in the literature based on TP1-TP5, and strain along the pile surface, SP1-SP5.
the relationship between the pile diameter and median Moreover, 5 set of fibres each consisting of 4 FBGs
grain size. In this study, this ratio is equal to 155 which are used to monitor the temperature in the soil bed at
is above the recommended limits specified in the lit- different levels and distances, T1-1 to T5-4 (Figure 1).
erature, namely 35 to 100 (King et al. 1984, Weinstein Data collected for temperature variations in the soil is
2008). In order to prevent heat loss, an encapsulated not presented in this paper though as the focus is on the
fibreglass insulation jacket is used to cover the top pile itself. Pile head displacement is measured using a
and bottom surfaces as well as the sides of container. Linear Variable Differential Transformer (LVDT) with
The insulation jacket has 8 mm thickness and a ther- measurement range of ±7.5 mm and data collection
mal conductivity value of 0.04 (W/m.K). A Techne frequency of 3 seconds.
compact water circulator model C-400 with tempera-
ture range of −20◦ C and +80◦ C is used to recirculate
thermostatically-controlled water through tubes con- 3 EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE
nected to the pile head. The circulator is not able to
cool the water and this is achieved by simply allowing A repeatable sample preparation method is used for
the water to fall back to room temperature. both tests to reach a relative density of approximately
The model pile is instrumented using Fibre Bragg 57%. Driving the pile in the sand bed was not an option
Gratings (FBG) which is one of the most commonly as it would damage the fragile FBGs surface sensors
used point-based optical fibres. Application of Fibre despite using protective coatings. In order to perform
Optic Sensors (FOS) for health monitoring of geotech- the shaft resistant test, the pile is held in position at the
nical structures including foundations and tunnels has centre of the container using a support at the pile head.
increased significantly over the past decade. Applica- Sand is poured into the container in 16 layers and each
tion of FOS for in-situ installation of Thermal Piles layer is levelled using a wooden tamper made partic-
is reported by Bourne-Webb et al. (2009). Using ularly for this purpose. Temperature FBG sensors are
FOS instead of conventional monitoring instruments placed at 5 levels. One end of the FBG sensor is placed
have several advantages including small size, high next to the pile surface and it is laid on the sand until
sensitivity, large bandwidth, automated and fast data it is sealed to the container wall and the other end is
acquisition, being immune to water and not using elec- attached to the laser box. Once the soil and sensors
trical signals (Iten, 2011). Typical strain resolution for are in place, the inlet and outlet pipes are connected
distributed sensors is around 20με while for point- to the circulator and pipes are insulated to reduce the
based sensors it is 1με which has made point-based heat loss during water circulation. Before starting the

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Figure 2. Temperature changes along the pile (a) Shaft
resistant pile (b) Base resistant pile.
test, the pile base support is removed which results in
0.05 mm (0.17% of the pile diameter) pile head move-
ment due its self-weight. Water circulator is turned on
and the temperature is raised to 50◦ C in less than 10
minutes. During each heating-cooling cycle, the tem-
perature is kept constant for 24 hours at 50◦ C and then
left to recover to room temperature for 24 hours and
the same procedure repeated in the second cycle – see
Figure 2.
For the base resistant pile, the same procedure is
applied with only one difference: Initially, the sand is
poured in the container layer by layer until it reaches
the height of 90 mm and then the pile base is placed
on it after which a similar procedure as that of shaft
resistant pile is repeated. The results are presented
below.
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
As previously noted, this paper only discusses the
results of shaft and base resistant piles under thermal
only loading. Both types of piles are not restrained
either of the top or bottom and hence the only restraint
is the surrounding sand. Pile temperature is increased
from 22◦ C to 50◦ C and data has shown that varia-
tions in the temperature is seen at different depths
during heating and cooling periods. Hence, instead
of using absolute temperature values, constant room
temperature at 22◦ C is considered as the reference
and temperature variations from room temperature is
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Figure 3. Observed strain distribution (a) Shaft resistant pile
(b) Base resistant pile.
used as a more reliable tool (See Figure 2). For the
shaft resistant pile, the maximum changes in temper-
ature during heating and cooling periods are 31.09◦ C
and −29.79◦ C from each particular period. These are
recorded at TP5 and TP4 levels respectively which are
approximately 8.5% higher than initial assumed value
of T = 50 − 22 = 28◦ C. For the base resistant pile,
slightly higher temperatures changes are recorded but
the same trend is seen in both tests where the pile is
heated up to 50◦ C within 10 minutes and kept at 50◦ C
for 24 hours and then left to cool for 24 hours and same
procedure is repeated in the 2nd cycle.
Three type of strain values are used in the thermo-
mechanical analysis of thermal pile systems. The first
is the observed strain collected in the laboratory, shown
in Figure 3. A residual strain of approximately 10 με is
seen in both tests. Lower strain values are obtained in
the second cycle compared to the first one. Observed
strain is compared with the free-state strain which is
the product of temperature changes and thermal expan-
sion coefficient of the pile material. In this study,
a separate test is performed on free-state condition
where the pile is heated up and cooled down with-
out any soil restraint or end restraint and strain values
collected are used as the free-state strain values. The
difference between observed and free state strain is
called Restrained Strain which represents the strain
caused by the friction between pile and sand at the
interface. It is this restrained strain that causes induced
loads (Bourne-Webb et al. 2009).
Figure 4. Degree of freedom variations along the depth (a) Figure 5. Induced axial force distribution along the pile (a)
Shaft resistant pile (b) Base resistant pile. Shaft resistant pile (b) Base resistant pile.

A term called ‘degree of freedom’ is used as the

ratio of observed strain over free strain to quantify
the amount of restraint. The value of degree of free-
dom varies between 0 and 1, where 0 means maximum
restraint. Existence of restraint will induce axial load
and consequently additional induced stresses in the
pile. Figure 4 shows the values of degree of freedom
along the pile length achieved in both tests. For the
shaft resistant pile, the maximum pile restraint is seen
at the bottom of the pile. The maximum and minimum
degrees of restraints are experienced at the end of first
cooling and heating periods respectively. For the base
resistant pile, similar trend as shaft resistant pile is
seen for the heating and cooling cycles although there
are less differences in the degree of freedom along
its depth. In both tests, the value of degree of free-
dom varies between 0.9 and 1.0 which shows that a
relatively small restraint is seen from the surrounding
sand.
Despite these small values of restrained strain and
high degree of freedom, a significant axial load is
induced in the pile from thermal loading. It is mainly
due to the high thermal expansion coefficient of stain-
less steel and the magnitude of temperature changes in
the pile. For the shaft resistant pile, the highest induced
load during heating and cooling periods are 860N and
1050N respectively. During the cooling period, ten-
sion load is also observed – see Figures 5 and 6. This
would be very significant for concrete piles. For the
base resistant pile, lower induced axial load is applied Figure 6. Induced axial stress distribution along the pile (a)
Shaft resistant pile (b) Base resistant pile.
to the pile due to the higher degree of freedom.

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Figure 7. Pile head displacement (a) Shaft resistant pile (b)
Base resistant pile.

Induced stress along the pile surface for both shaft

and base resistant piles are shown in Figure 6. For
the shaft resistant pile, the maximum induced stress
in seen in the first cooling period at the bottom of the
pile where it has reached up to −8.4 MPa. For the base
resistant pile, the maximum induced stress is recorded
at 95 mm depth as −5.57 MPa.
Pile head displacements under thermal cycles for
both shaft and base resistant piles are shown in Fig-
ure 7. For the shaft resistant pile, heave is seen during
heating and settlement during cooling of the pile. Sig-
nificant drop is seen during first cooling period where
it has gone below the original starting point and again
heaving happens due to heating and larger settlement
up to 0.22 mm is seen in the second cooling period that
shows the degradation of skin friction during heat-
ing and cooling cycles. This also explains why the
induced load is lower in the second cooling cycle than
in the first. Moreover, irreversible settlement is seen
and hence, the assumption of perfect thermo-elastic
behaviour does not hold. The base resistant pile shows
a very similar trend where the maximum settlement is
seen during the 2nd cooling period.
In response to heave and settlement of the pile in Figure 8. Mobilised shaft friction at 4 zones along the pile
the heating and cooling periods, shaft friction on the for shaft resistant pile.
pile is mobilized to resist the movement. In order to
determine the value of mobilised shaft resistance, the
formula by Laloui et al. (2006) is used in this study. Mobilized shaft friction for the shaft resistant pile
Four zones are defined for the mobilized shaft resis- is shown in Figure 8. During 2 heating periods, higher
tance from bottom of the pile between SP1 and SP2 magnitude of mobilized friction is seen in zones 1
called zone 1 to top of the pile between SP4 and SP5, and 3 during 1st heating period and in the 2nd heat-
zone 4. ing period, higher values are seen in zones 2 and 4.

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At the end of cooling periods, higher magnitude of
mobilized friction is seen during 2nd cooling periods
in all zones except zone 3. This could be due to the
higher magnitude of pile head displacements during
the 2nd cooling period (Figure 7). Results presented
in Figure 8 for shaft resistant pile is compared with
the findings by Yavari et al. (2014) for test E2 for a
shaft and base resistant pile. In terms of absolute mag-
nitudes, lower magnitude of mobilized friction is seen
byYavari et al. (2014), possibly due to the lower magni-
tude of temperature increase, reaching 35◦ C compared
to 50◦ C in this study. Moreover, shaft resistant pile is
expected to have higher mobilized friction and use the
entire capacity of shaft friction due to the lack of sup-
port at the bottom compared to shaft and base resistant
model.
5 CONCLUSIONS
A laboratory test for 2 types of shaft resistant and base
resistant piles embedded in sand under thermal load-
ing is presented. A novel monitoring technique using
Fibre Bragg Grating optical fibre sensors is used to
monitor temperature and strain on the pile surface
and in the soil bed. It is found that small restraint is
applied from the surrounding sand but due to the phys-
ical properties of the model pile and also due to the
high temperature changes, significant axial loads and
stresses are induced in the pile. In addition to compres-
sive forces, considerable tensile force also develops in
the pile. Irreversible pile head settlement is also seen
for both shaft resistant and base resistant piles. Higher
settlements are seen in the second cooling period com-
pared to the first cooling period showing the signs of
skin degradation under 2-way cyclic loading that are
also evident from the distribution of induced loads at
310
different cycles. As part of the on-going research, the
results presented in this study for thermal only load-
ing will be used to assess the behaviour of piles under
thermo-mechanical loading.
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