In the 97.5 m deep borehole at Energy Farm of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a thermal response test (TRT) and a distributed thermal response test (DTRT) were carried out to analyze the homogeneous thermal properties and heterogenous thermal properties, separately. DTRT is a hybrid method coupling a conventional TRT and fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing (FO-DTS) which allows for an analysis of thermal properties along the subsurface layer by layer. According to the 3-D multiphysical model simulation, the DTRT will improve the spatial resolution of thermal properties predication as compared to TRT, which assumes the subsurface as a homogeneous solid. In on-going work, both ground thermal regimes will be analyzed during DTRT to compare how the thermal properties vary with different testing phases and scenarios to evaluate the working efficacy balance of the ground source heat pump.
- PI: Yu-Feng Lin
- PI Institution: University of Illinois
- June 18, 2018 – September 17, 2019