SUCCESS - Sustainability of shallow geothermal systems
Applied studies to southern Europe climates
Managing energy resources and the environmental impacts resulting from their exploitation are major concerns of modern societies. The search of renewable energy sources is being increasingly promoted, especially in the last few decades. Surface geothermal energy is one of those sources and is being increasingly used for buildings and infra-structures conditioning. Besides the economical and environmental advantages, the use of shallow geothermal systems climate change mitigation and adaptation is a challenge for a near future.
More informationWorkshop on Shallow geothermal systems. Applications and perspectives
Increasing the use of renewable energy sources is a top political agenda item in developed countries. Employing shallow geothermal energy, which use ground top layers as thermal reservoirs for buildings and infrastructure heating and cooling, is being increasingly adopted, and especially in northern and central Europe, where most developments are taking place both in practice and in research. When evaluating and designing shallow geothermal solutions, various factors must be considered to ensure system sustainability, including three key aspects: operational climate, soil thermal properties, and system efficiency. Accordingly, accurate climate forecasting models, proper soil thermal characterization techniques, and effective system monitoring designs must be established. The study of shallow geothermal systems covers various areas of science and technology. This first Workshop of Project Success addresses some of the most important among them and will also review recent studies and perspectives across a variety of areas.
Guest lecturers
The Workshop will address a series of themes each of which will be the object of an invited lecture. The themes will be open to Poster Submission.
Organization
Aveiro University (UA), National Laboratory for Civil Engineering (LNEC), Lisbon Techical University (IST)
Project indicators - February 2017
Master Thesis
Completed
Carla Sofia Gonçalves Neri (2016). Estudo do comportamento de solos sob influência de sistemas geotérmicos. Dissertação apresentada à Universidade de Aveiro para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Civil.
Adelino Joaquim Ribeiro Costa (2016). Sustentabilidade de sistemas geotérmicos superficiais: Estudos aplicados a climas do sul da europa. Dissertação apresentada à Universidade de Aveiro para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Civil.
André Ferreira Mota (2016). Contributo da energia geotérmica no desempenho térmico de um edifício. Dissertação apresentada à Universidade de Aveiro para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Civil. (orientação conjunta LNEC)
To occur
J. Miguel Q. Cruz (2017). Apoio à modelação de geoestruturas termoactivas para avaliação da sua eficiência energética. IST, Universidade de Lisboa. (orientação conjunta IST , LNEC)
João Sequeira (2017). Modelação numérica da interacção térmica em estruturas termoactivas enterradas. IST, Universidade de Lisboa. (orientação conjunta LNEC)
Mariana Albuquerque Sousa (2017). Medição das propriedades térmicas de solos considerando o seu grau de saturação. IST, Universidade de Lisboa.
Kamar Aljundi (2017). LCA of geothermal systems, Universidade de Aveiro (orientação conjunta LNEC)
Abstracts and Articles
João Figueira e Ana Vieira (2016). Métodos de Caracterização Térmica do Solo para Aproveitamentos Geotérmicos Superficiais. 15º Congresso nacional de Geotecnia, 19-23 de Junho 2016 Porto. (Anexo)
João R. Maranha, Carlos Pereira e Ana Vieira (2016). Strain-rate change effects in reconstituted London clay using a viscoplastic subloading model. European Journal of Environmental and Civil Engineering, November 2016 Published online: 28 Nov 2016
Abstracts of Conferences
Submitted
Cardoso, R, Sousa, M.A e Vieira, A (2018). Suction effect on the thermal properties of compacted kaolin. UNSAT2018. Hong Kong.
Chapters
João R. Maranha, Carlos Pereira e Ana Vieira (2017). Thermo‐viscoplastic subloading soil model for isotropic stress and strain conditions International Workshop: Advances in Laboratory Testing & Modelling of Soils and Shales 18-20 January 2017, Villars-sur-Ollon Suíça.
Available later
Available later
Enrique Edgar Romero Morales, Catalonian Politechnical University, Barcelona, Spain
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, PTDC/ECM-GEO/0728/2014
Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil
Av. do Brasil, 101
1700-066 LISBOA
PORTUGAL
218 443 331
Managing energy resources and the environmental impacts resulting from its exploitation are major concerns of modern societies. The search of renewable energy sources has been increasingly promoted, especially in the last few decades. Geothermal energy is one of those sources, and has been intensively used for buildings and infra-structures conditioning. Besides the economical and environmental advantages, climate change mitigation and adaptation are also challenges for a near future.
Shallow Geothermal Systems, the usually called Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) use the ground as a thermal reservoir. Among GSHP, the so-called thermoactive geostructures are recently experiencing exponential growth in Europe, specially in central and northern countries. This category includes all the ground-embedded structures, such as tunnels, anchors and linings, shallow foundations, piles and diaphragm walls, used to exchange heat with the ground as well as borehole heat exchangers (BHE).
The design of these systems is interdisciplinary evolving thermal, mechanical and hydraulic soil and concrete characterization, definition of the atmospheric conditions in place, operating system thermal action definition, as well as the overall energy demand for the building or facility to be conditioned. These in turn are dependent of the specific features of the building. Integrating all these aspects aims to optimize the system’s performance by minimizing the costs and the environmental impacts.
Besides evaluation of the heat flows between the ground and the concrete structures, the thermo-mechanical effects must be accessed ensuring system operation without affecting safety and functionality, being necessary to study on the long term the changes induced in the soil temperature field and the structural safety of the foundation elements.The main purpose of this Project is to analyze in an integrated manner all the parties involved in the performance of a building with GSHP and numerically reproduce its overall behaviour. For that purpose it will be used a case study (prototype), consisting on a building located in Aveiro University (UA) campus for which a series of information is available. The study to be carried on will involve the primary circuit characterization (the part of the system in contact with the soil) and the secondary one (the building) and the numerical reproduction of its seasonal overall behaviour.
The case study building has a Energy Management System that collects data from several sensors, with years of historic data from the building and geothermal system. The weather records of a local station (in the University) are also available. Despite this amount of data, to validate the Building Energy Model (BEM) and to further develop optimization studies, the monitoring of some building areas and the evaluation of its main thermal loads is still needed. With those data, it will be possible to validate the BEM model to simulate the geothermal system and the building, and conduct a more detailed study of geothermal system and its interaction with the building.
With the data of the overall system in operation its behaviour will be numerically reproduced in an integrated manner and its sustainability and energy efficiency evaluated. This project presents as innovative aspects the detailed and integrated analyses of the sustainability of the global geothermal system, for the specific conditions of the Portuguese territory, it has also the purpose of collecting data and most of all to attaining knowledge or abilities in areas where information is either limited or totally lacking in Portugal.
The aim of this Project is to carry on an integrated analysis of the main processes involved in heating and/or cooling of buildings with thermoactive geostructures systems, from the stage of soil thermal characterization to the building’s energy efficiency long term evaluation. In the present case, the behaviour of a specific building in UA campus will be simulated based on data collected from the building and from its foundation soil and its sustainability accessed. Further sustainability analyses will be carried out for other cities in Portugal (different soil and climate conditions) and different building typologies.
Because energy management and climate change are major problems facing society in the XXI century, scientific studies related to the use of renewable forms of energy and means of tackling climate changes assume great importance. This research team believes that the study they intend to carry out may acquire a strategic and increased importance for the development and life standards of southern European countries, and in this specific case, of Portugal and its specific conditions. The socio-economic impact of this theme is evident.The Project is organized in the following topics:
Project success involves a multidisciplinary team from the National Laboratory for Civil Engineering (LNEC), the Aveiro University (UA) and the Lisbon Technical University (IST), with complementary expertise in geotechnical engineering, civil constructions and building conditioning.
