Soil thermal behavior in different moisture condition: an overview of ITER project from laboratory to field test monitoring

The thermal properties of soils can be considered one of the most important parameters for many engineering projects designing. In detail, the thermal conductivity plays a fundamental role when dimensioning ground heat exchangers, especially very shallow geothermal (VSG) systems, interesting the first 2 m of depth from the ground level. However, the determination of heat transfer in soils is difficult to estimate, because depends on several factors, including, among others, particle size, density, water content, mineralogy composition, ground temperature, organic matter. The performance of a VSG system, as horizontal collectors or special forms, is strongly correlated to the kind of sediment at disposal and suddenly decreases in case of dry-unsaturated conditions in the surrounding soil. Therefore, a better knowledge of the relationship between thermal conductivity and water content is required for understanding the VSG systems behavior in saturated and unsaturated conditions. Key challenge of ITER project, funded by European Union, is to understand how to enhance the heat transfer of the sediments surrounding the pipes, taking into account the interactions between the soil, the horizontal heat exchangers and the surrounding environment. In detail, changes of soil moisture content in the same climatic conditions and under the same thermal stress for five different soil mixtures have been monitored in the ITER test site. The relationship with precipitation and natural/induced ground temperature variations, reaching also water freezing point, are here discussed.