Thermosyphon Foundation Cooling

Climate Scenario

Mean annual air temperature -4.0°C

Ground ice content 60%

Simulation speed 6 yr/s

Thermosyphon Array

Live Readouts

Elapsed time

0.0 yr

Avg. ground temp

-4.0°C

Thawed columns

0 / 36

Foundation stability

100%

How it works

Each soil column is coupled to the air by Newton-style relaxation, with the relaxation time stretched near 0°C to stand in for the latent heat that must be absorbed before ice can melt (the Stefan freeze/thaw problem):

dT/dt = (T_air − T_ground) / τ(T_ground)
τ(T)  = τ0 · (1 + iceContent · 5 · exp(−(T/1°C)²))

A thermosyphon is a sealed, refrigerant-filled pipe that moves heat only one way: liquid at the buried end evaporates, rises, condenses on the air-cooled fins above ground, and drains back down by gravity. That convection loop only runs when the top is colder than the bottom, so it passively extracts extra heat in winter and shuts itself off in summer — no pump, no power:

extra cooling = k_ts · (T_ground − T_air),  only if T_air < T_ground and pipe present

Real installations (e.g. the Trans-Alaska Pipeline's vertical support members) use exactly this passive mechanism to keep permafrost frozen under heated structures, preventing the thaw settlement that cracks foundations. In this model, the four columns nearest the building corners are its piles — once their average temperature rises above about −0.5°C the ground beneath them starts to lose bearing strength, and the building visibly sinks and tilts.

Mean annual air temperature — shifts the whole seasonal cycle warmer or colder, simulating regional climate change.
Ground ice content — more ice means more latent-heat buffering, so the ground resists thawing longer once the sun starts pushing it toward 0°C.
Thermosyphon coverage — what fraction of columns get a working thermosyphon; 0% shows an unprotected foundation for comparison.

Air: -8.0°C

Frozen ground Thawed ground Thermosyphon (active)

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