Alternative pavement heating technique using renewable energy in North Dakota

¹ Geology and Geological Engineering, University of North Dakota, USA
² Civil Engineering, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Visiting Scholar, University of North Dakota

^* Corresponding author: ihsuan.ho@und.edu (I-Hsuan Ho)

Abstract

Hydronic heating pavement (HHP) is considered to be more sustainable and environmental-friendly for de-icing or pavement heating. The more efficient approach is to use deep direct-use geothermal energy due to the high temperature and clean. In western North Dakota, several aquifers have been identified to provide geothermal hot water ranging from 34°C to 140°C within 2300 m below the ground surface. The current technique has made it feasible to utilize the hot water for power generation. Besides drilling new wells, the higher temperature water exits from power plant still has up to 70ºC. This temperature enables the valuable applications to cascading use for other purposes such as space heating, snow-melting for transportation infrastructure etc. This paper mainly focuses on studying the challenges of an HHP using geothermal water. Parametric studies using finite element analysis were conducted. Considering the high heat demands in western North Dakota due to the extreme weather, the suitable water temperatures, pipes layouts, mechanical properties of piped pavement, volumetric flow rates and thermal conductivity of pavement were analysed. The optimization of the HHP subject to different weather conditions and new findings are summarized and discussed.