Temperature sensor module for groundwater flow detection around borehole heat exchangers

Abstract

We present a temperature sensor module (TSM) for detecting the groundwater flow velocity and direction in the vicinity of a borehole heat exchanger (BHE). We demonstrate the method for double U-tube BHEs, which can also be applied to coaxial BHEs. TSMs can be installed together with a BHE to monitor the temperature distribution in the horizontal plane of a BHE. They consist of 16 digital temperature sensors equally distributed on two concentric rings and a compass, which provides the TSM orientation. While the eight sensors located on the inner ring mainly map the temperatures of the inlet and outlet tubes, the temperatures measured on the outer ring are influenced by advective heat transport due to groundwater flow. We study the sensitivity of the TSM to groundwater flow by numerical simulations and suggest a method for deriving both the groundwater flow velocity and direction. Moreover, we designed a TSM prototype and tested it in a sandbox experiment. This test confirmed the operational principle of the TSM and the method for determining the groundwater flow velocity and direction. The digital temperature sensors used in the TSM prototype resolve temperature changes down to 0.02 K. Both the numerical simulations and the experimental measurements show that such a temperature resolution enables the detection of groundwater flow velocities above 10−7 m s−1 (> 30 m a−1).