A Novel Approach to the Analysis of Thermal Response Test (TRT) with Interrupted Power Input

The quality of measuring datasets of the thermal response test (TRT) significantly influences the interpretation of borehole thermal parameters (BTP). A thermal response test with an unstable power input may induce an unacceptable error in the estimation of the borehole thermal parameters. This paper proposes a novel approach to treat the dataset with interrupted power input. In this approach, the test records were segmented into several subsections with a constant time interval of 100 min, 60 min, and 30 min, separately. The quality of each data section was assessed and analyzed. Then, two algorithms, including the continuous algorithm and semi-superposition algorithm, were developed. The results estimated by the linear source model (LSM) were compared with one Thermal response test datasets with a stable power input at the same testing site. It shows that the effects of power interruption during the test can be effectively mitigated by deploying both the continuous and semi-superposition methods. The lowest deviation of the calculated thermal conductivity to a thermal response test with stable power input was 2.8% in the continuous method and 0.9% using the semi-superposition method. Thus, the proposed approaches are effective measures to mitigate the effects of interrupted power input on the interpretation of the thermal properties of the ground.