Critical Review on Efficiency of Ground Heat Exchangers in Heat Pump Systems

Adel Eswiasi and Phalguni Mukhopadhyaya
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Adel Eswiasi: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2, Canada
Phalguni Mukhopadhyaya: Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2, Canada

Clean Technol., 2020, vol. 2, issue 2, 1-21

Abstract: Use of ground source heat pumps has increased significantly in recent years for space heating and cooling of residential houses and commercial buildings, in both heating (i.e., cold region) and cooling (i.e., warm region) dominated climates, due to its low carbon footprint. Ground source heat pumps exploit the passive energy storage capacity of the ground for heating and cooling of buildings. The main focus of this paper is to critically review how different construction and operation parameters (e.g., pipe configuration, pipe diameter, grout, heat injection rate, and volumetric flow rate) have an impact on the thermal efficiency of the vertical ground heat exchanger (VGHE) in a ground source heat pump (GSHP) system. The published literatures indicate that thermal performance of VGHEs increases with an increase of borehole diameter and/or pipe diameter. These literatures show that the borehole thermal resistance of VGHEs decreases within a range of 9% to 52% due to pipe configurations and grout materials. Furthermore, this paper also identifies the scope to increase the thermal efficiency of VGHE. The authors conclude that in order to enhance the heat transfer rate in VGHE, any attempt to increase the surface area of the pipe configuration would likely be an effective solution.

Keywords: vertical ground heat exchangers; thermal response test; borehole thermal resistance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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