Establishing zone of influence (ZOI) for cylindrical heat source in dry sand

Safe, proper design and installation of several thermo-active structures necessitate establishing zone of extent of heat migration in soil mass. This zone is termed as 'zone of influence', ZOI, and its determination is imperative to avoid unwanted situations, which could be threat to the surrounding structures. This is where in-situ monitoring of the temperatures in the near- and far-field would be quite prudent, however would be an expensive exercise. Therefore, COMSOL Multiphysics (R) was employed to determine the ZOI. Nevertheless, the relative efficiency of these tools in yielding the ZOI remains a big question, and requires results from experiments to validate. Hence, an attempt was made in this study to establish the ZOI of cylindrical heat source, which replicates geothermal energy pile in dry sands, by adopting novel experimental methodology. ZOI has been established for cylindrical heat source experimentally and numerically. Furthermore, unique mathematical equation has been developed by using regression analysis.