Geothermal energy is a kind of innovative, sustainable and clean energy, which can be exploited and utilized by various geothermal related structures, such as geothermal energy piles (GEP), ground source heat pumps (GSHP) systems, etc. Comparing with thermal diffusivity and heat capacity properties, thermal conductivity is the most important soil thermal property since it is the only one that can determine the heat transfer and temperature distributions in soils. An accurate prediction of soil thermal conductivity is crucial to the design and operation of above energy geo-structures. In this paper, a study on comparative performance of soil thermal conductivity prediction models was carried out. Eleven alternative models were selected to predict sand thermal conductivity and compare the results with a large set of experimental data (221 data points) from literatures. Linear regression analyses and root-mean square error (RMSE) analyses were also conducted to further evaluate the model performance. Some recommendations had been provided for future geothermal applications.
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