Increasing use of the ground as a thermal reservoir is expected in the near future. Shallow geothermal energy (SGE) systems have proved to be sustainable alternative solutions for buildings and infrastructure conditioning in many areas across the globe in the past decades. Recently novel solutions, including energy geostructures, where SGE systems are coupled with foundation heat exchangers, have also been developed. The performance of these systems is dependent on a series of factors, among which the thermal properties of the soil play a major role. The purpose of this paper is to present, in an integrated manner, the main methods and procedures to assess ground thermal properties for SGE systems and to carry out a critical review of the methods. In particular, laboratory testing through either steady-state or transient methods are discussed and a new synthesis comparing results for different techniques is presented. In situ testing including all variations of the thermal response test is presented in detail, including a first comparison between new and traditional approaches. The issue of different scales between laboratory and in situ measurements is then analysed in detail. Finally, the thermo-hydro-mechanical behaviour of soil is introduced and discussed. These coupled processes are important for confirming the structural integrity of energy geostructures, but routine methods for parameter determination are still lacking.

The possibility of equipping diaphragm walls as ground heat exchangers to meet the full or partial heating and cooling demands of overlying or adjacent buildings has been explored in recent years. In this paper, the factors affecting the energy performance of diaphragm walls equipped as heat exchangers are investigated through finite-element modelling. The numerical approach employed is first validated using available experimental data and then applied to perform parametric analyses. Parameters considered in the analysis include panel width, the ratio between the wall and excavation depths, heat transfer pipe spacing, concrete cover, heat carrier fluid velocity, concrete thermal properties and the temperature difference between the air within the excavation and the soil behind the wall. The results indicate that increasing the number of pipes by reducing their spacing is the primary route to increasing energy efficiency in the short term. However, the thermal properties of the wall concrete and the temperature excess within the excavation space are also important, with the latter becoming the most significant in the medium to long term. This confirms the benefits of exploiting the retaining walls installed for railway tunnels and metro stations where additional sources of heat are available.

Frictional heating has long been considered a mechanism responsible for the high velocities and long run-out of some large-scale landslides. In this work a landslide model is presented, applicable to large-scale planar landslides occurring in a coherent fashion. The model accounts for temperature rise in the slip zone due to the heat produced by friction, leading to water expansion, thermoplastic collapse of the soil skeleton, and subsequently to an increase of pore-water pressure. The landslide model, comprising equations that describe heat and pore pressure diffusion and the dynamics of the moving mass, is used to analyse the evolution of the Jiufengershan planar landslide as an example. Further, its parameter space is systematically and efficiently explored using a Taguchi parametric analysis in an attempt to quantify dominant parameters. It is shown that the process of sliding is dominated by the softening properties of the material, as expected, but also by the permeability of the slip zone and the thickness of the sliding mass. It is worth noting that the latter two parameters do not enter traditional stability analyses of uniform slopes.