Investigation of the influence of the ground heat exchanger geometry on its thermal performance by using a water-to-water ground-source heat

pump
P-J Steenbeke
2013

Abstract

Ground-source heat pumps (GSHPs) are evolving into the most popular, reliable and competitive heating and cooling systems available. Yet, studies on the influence of the parameters of the horizontal ground heat exchangers (GHEs) are few. Consequently, the objective of this study was to investigate the influence the depth and the length of the GHEs have on the thermodynamic performance while the other are kept constant. Therefore, year-round simulations were performed on a water-to-water GSHP with horizontal GHEs and a variablespeed compressor for a typical family house of approximately 190 m living space based on the weather conditions in Brno and Ghent. Each parameter was given 3 different values resulting in 9 combinations. It is concluded that with increasing depth, the coefficient of performance in the heating mode ( ) reduces while it increases in the cooling mode ( ). Moreover, the higher the length, the higher the apart from the lower Keywords: Ground-source heat pump; Horizontal ground heat exchangers; Influence length and depth of ground heat exchange; Thermodynamic performance

Abbreaviations: CalA, calculation area; COP, coefficient of performance (index H: heating; index C: cooling); GHE, ground heat exchanger; GSHP, ground-source heat pump
Introduction

Worldwide, the awareness is enlarging of the threat climate change is to our future. Since fossil fuel consumption is the predominant origin, renewable energy technologies have been developed. Wind, solar, biomass and biofuel are not the only clean, efficient and every saving renewable sources to furnish heat, light and electricity without polluting the air or disturbing large areas of land or water. Temperature within the soil increases with depth as shown on Figure 1. This heat flows to the surface by conduction and is continuously replenished mainly by decay of naturally radioactive elements. Hence, the earth possesses an enormous amount of heat. This heat can be used as an energy source, i.e. geothermal energy. A new, potent, reliable and highly efficient instrument for space heating and/or cooling is a heat pump. It operates under the principle that heat can be moved from a warmer temperature to

2| a cooler temperature. In most cases, heat pumps use the air, ground or water as heat source. Even at temperatures we consider to be cold, these sources contain useful heat that is continuously replenished by solar energy. Special geologic conditions, such as hot springs or hot rocks (geothermal energy), are not required for successful application. Ground-source and watersource, referred as geothermal heat pumps (GHEs), can be designed as either a closed (groundcoupled) or open (water source) loop which itself can be either horizontal or vertical.

Figure 1 - Temperature at various depths of the earth [1]

A heat pump does not differ in principle from a refrigerator apart from its purpose: heat pumps provide heat whereas refrigerators obtain cold. In cooling operation it operates exactly as a refrigerator. A single efficient system can thus provide both heating and cooling. This eliminates the need for separate furnace and air-conditioning systems. In addition, a heat pump can also be used as a hot water system. The thermodynamic performance of a heat pump is appraised by the coefficient of performance (COP). This is the ratio of the output energy divided by the input energy: (1) = (2) = where Q (Q ) is the supplied (removed) heat and W is the energy required to power the system or the compressor. In general, the peak-load operation represents approximately 10% of the total system hours [2]. For maximum cost-effectiveness, heat pumps are generally sized to meet 60-70% of the total maximum dimension load. A supplementary heating system covers the occasional peak heating demand. Although the initial cost may reduce, the running cost will increase due to its low performance [3] [4]. Therefore, variable-speed compressors have been developed. Such systems can eliminate the need for a supplementary heating system (see further) [5].

3| Heat pumps are energy efficient because they rely on the principles of vapour compression refrigeration. Via a refrigerant system it absorbs heat at one place and rejects it at another. This heat transfer is accomplished by cycle of evaporation, compression, condensation and expansion of a refrigerant liquid as seen on in Figure 2. Despite all the advantages, the awareness and acceptance is unfortunately excessively little. The installation cost is higher than conventional systems. In addition, there is a lack of skilled and experienced designers and installers of heat pumps. However, it is notably cheaper to run and the maintenance costs are lower. Furthermore, commercial heat pump technologies are currently rapidly enhancing. Thus, heat pumps are evolving into the most popular, reliable and competitive heating and cooling systems available, especially due to present environmental consciousness and enforced governmental subsidy [6] [7] [8]. Though, heat pumps have been implemented for years in northern Europe and North America. The interest in them is augmenting in other countries, for example Japan and Turkey [6] [9].

Heated/Hot Area QH CONDENSOR

W P T EXPANSION VALVE COMPRESSOR P T

EVAPORATOR QC Cool/Cooled Area

Figure 2 - Refrigeration cycle

Many studies have been performed on GSHPs. Yet, studies on the influence of the parameters of the horizontal ground heat exchangers (GHEs) are few. Tarnawski et al. [4] concluded that the COP increases with increasing length. Moreover, they indicated that in the heating and cooling

4| mode the COP is mainly affected by the pipes buried closer to the ground surface. Similar results were presented by ikula and Plek [10]. In these times of ever increasing prices and scarcity of ground, designers of heat pumps with horizontal GHEs must understand the thermal interferences of the GHEs to be able to design systems which take less surface area, with special emphasis on GSHPs, without reducing the COP significantly. Consequently, the objective of this study was to investigate the influence the depth and the length of the GHEs have on the thermodynamic performance while the other are kept constant.
Methodology

Computer simulations and analysis of water-to-water GSHP system with horizontal GHEs were carried out to two-year period meteorological conditions of Brno and Ghent for a typical family house of 190 m living space. For Brno, the data of the year 2005 were obtained from a study by ikula and Plek [10]. For the hometown of the researcher, the data of the year 2009 were acquired from Weather Underground [11]. Figure 3 and Figure 4 portray the heating and cooling demands during the year. The family house requires 33.1 and 0.184 GJ/year respectively for heating and cooling in Brno whereas 37.2 and 0.0917 GJ/year in Ghent. As it is observed the GSHP in this study will mainly operate in the heating mode. The peak heating load is 2.9 kW and 2.6 kW for Brno and Ghent, respectively, as the peak cooling load is 0.8 kW and 0.5 kW.
3 2.5 Heating and cooling load (kW) 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 -0.5 -1 0 40 80 120 160 2005 Figure 3 - Hourly heating and cooling demands during the year for Brno 200 240 280 320 360

5|
3 2.5 Heating and cooling load (kW) 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 -0.5 -1 0 40 80 120 160 2009 Figure 4 - Hourly heating and cooling demands during the year for Ghent 200 240 280 320 360

For these conditions 9 different GHE geometries with variable length and depth (Table 1) and uniform radius and spacing, were first simulated using the dynamic calculating software Calculation Area (CalA). This software simulates the temperature and heat flow of diverse geometries. As input, the thermal conductivity (), density () and specific heat capacity (c) of the ground were considered as: = 2.30 W/m.K, = 2000 kg/m and c = 920 J/kg.K corresponding to water-saturated sand soil. Due to a symmetrical geometry of the GHEs, only the half of the geometry is simulated to save computation time and data storage. As output, hourly temperatures during the year of the control volumes assigned to the GHEs were used to compare the different options (see T in Table 2).
Table 1 - Variables geometry GHE

Variable depth (m) length (m)

Option 1 0.50 100

Option 2 0.75 175

Option 3 1.00 250

Tarnawski et al. [4] commented that after the third year of the GSHP operation, the ground thermal regime remains practically unchanged. Therefore, in order to save computational time and data storage, all simulations should be carried up to three years and only the results from the third year should be considered for the study. Due to inadequate time, only a two-year operation period has been simulated. Hence, in this study the results from the second year are used. Forsmand concluded that the COP calculated using daily average data was within 3% from the daily average obtained using hourly data [12], while Bose even suggested the use of monthly

6| average climatic data for the GHE design [13]. However, to perform a purely theoretical investigation, hourly data have been adopted. During the heating operation, the condenser temperature was taken as constant as well as the evaporator temperature during the cooling operation. These and other temperatures in heat exchanging pipes are given in Table 2. Moreover, the refrigerant mass flow was adjusted to the required capacity. Figure 5 depicts the schematic diagram and the heat exchanging pipe temperatures of the heating and cooling operation of the GSHP.
Table 2 - Temperatures in the heat exchanging pipes in heating and cooling operation

HEATING OPERATION , = 27 , = 35 = , + 3 = 38 , = + 3 , = 3 = , 3 (3) (5) (7) (9) (11) (13)

COOLING OPERATION , = 22 , = 14 = , 3 = 11 , = 3 , = + 3 = , 3 (4) (6) (8) (10) (12) (14)

TC,out C E

TE,out

TE,in TC,in

(a)

TC,out C TC,in E

TE,out

TE,in (b)
Figure 5 - Schematic diagram of the heating (a) and cooling operation (b) of a GSHP

7|

With those assumptions the COP (COP ) can be calculated as a function of the difference between condenser and evaporator (evaporator and condenser) temperature (T). Therefore, the simulation software CoolPack was attained. CoolPack is a collection of simulation models for refrigeration systems. Refrigerant 134a was used in the heat pump and the efficiency () was chosen 80%. For simplicity, the desuperheater option and the lag of the temperature cycles were not considered in this study. Since it concerns a small house, DX evaporators were employed. Other inputs were considered constant. Figure 6 displays the COP and COP as function of the T. By using trendlines of the power type following equations were found: = 220.81 . = 205.08 . (15) (16)

allowing to calculate the COP during the year depending on the T. The average of these hourly COPs was taken to be the overall COP of the GSHP system.
Heating 25 20 COP 15 10 5 0 0 10 20 30 (C) Figure 6 - COPH and COPC as function of T 40 50 60 Cooling

Results Brno

First, the influence of a GHE geometry with variable depth and uniform length was examined. Figure 7, Figure 8 and Figure 9 depict the temperature fluctuations in the GHE during second year for pipe lengths of 20 m, 35 m and 50 m, respectively. They show that the temperature of the GHEs closer to the surface are higher as well as they are more subject to temperature fluctuations.

8|

0.50 40

0.75

1.00

30 Temperature (C)

20

10

-10 0 40 80 120 160 200 Day of the year 240 280 320 360

Figure 7 - Temperature fluctuations in a GHE of 20 m length during the second year (Brno) 0.50 40 0.75 1.00

30 Temperature (C)

20

10

-10 0 40 80 120 160 200 Day of the year 240 280 320 360

Figure 8 - Temperature fluctuations in a GHE of 35 m length during the second year (Brno

9|

0.50 40

0.75

1.00

30 Temperature (C)

20

10

-10 0 40 80 120 160 200 Day of the year 240 280 320 360

Figure 9 - Temperature fluctuations in a GHE of 50 m length during the second year (Brno

Second, the influence of a GHE geometry with variable length and uniform depth was examined. Figure 10, Figure 11 and Figure 12 depict the temperature fluctuations in the GHE during second year for depths of 0.50 m, 0.75 m and 1.00 m, respectively. It can be seen that the greater the length, the higher the temperatures, especially in the winter, while they are fewer subject to temperature fluctuations. The latter is different from the results where the depth was considered variable as length was kept constant.
20 40 35 50

30 Temperature (C)

20

10

-10 0 40 80 120 160 200 Day of the year 240 280 320 360

Figure 10 - Temperature fluctuations in a GHE at 0.50 m depth during the second year (Brno)

10 |

20 40

35

50

30 Temperature (C)

20

10

-10 0 40 80 120 160 200 Day of the year 240 280 320 360

Figure 11 - Temperature fluctuations in a GHE at 0.75 m depth during the second year (Brno) 20 40 35 50

30 Temperature (C)

20

10

-10 0 40 80 120 160 200 Day of the year 240 280 320 360

Figure 12 - Temperature fluctuations in a GHE at 1.00 m depth during the second year (Brno)

Finally, the COP is calculated. Figure 13 and Figure 14 show the COP and COP , respectively. As observed, the COP is the highest for GHE with a length of 50 m at a depth of 0.50 m while the COP is the lowest. Since the heating operation predominates this combination seemed to be optimal.

11 |

0.50 12 11 10 COPH 09 08 07 06 05 10 20

0.75

1.00

30 40 Length GHE (m) Figure 13 - COPH Brno 0.50 0.75 1.00

50

60

08

07 COPC 06 05 10 20 30 40 Length GHE (m) Figure 14 - COPC Brno 50 60

Ghent

Analogously to Brno, the influence of a GHE geometry with variable depth and uniform length was first examined. Figure 15, Figure 16 and Figure 17 depict the temperature fluctuations in the GHE during second year for pipe lengths of 20 m, 35 m and 50 m, respectively. It can be observed that the temperature of the GHEs closer to the surface are higher as well as they are more subject to temperature fluctuations.

12 |

0.50 40

0.75

1.00

30 Temperature (C)

20

10

-10 0 40 80 120 160 200 240 280 320 360 Day of the year Figure 15 - Temperature fluctuations in a GHE of 20 m length during the second year (Ghent) 0.50 40 0.75 1.00

30 Temperature (C)

20

10

-10 0 40 80 120 160 200 Day of the year 240 280 320 360

Figure 16 - Temperature fluctuations in a GHE of 35 m length during the second year (Ghent)

13 |

0.50 40

0.75

1.00

30 Temperature (C)

20

10

-10 0 40 80 120 160 200 Day of the year 240 280 320 360

Figure 17 - Temperature fluctuations in a GHE of 50 m length during the second year (Ghent)

Second, the influence of a GHE geometry with variable length and uniform depth was examined. Figure 18, Figure 19 and Figure 20 depict the temperature fluctuations in the GHE during second year for depths of 0.50 m, 0.75 m and 1.00 m, respectively. It can be seen that the greater the length, the higher the temperatures, especially in the winter, while they are fewer subject to temperature fluctuations. The latter is once more different from the results where the depth was considered variable as length was constant.
20 40 35 50

30 Temperature (C)

20

10

-10 0 40 80 120 160 200 Day of the year 240 280 320 360

Figure 18 - Temperature fluctuations in a GHE at 0.50 m depth during the second year (Ghent)

14 |

20 40

35

50

30 Temperature (C)

20

10

-10 0 40 80 120 160 200 Day of the year 240 280 320 360

Figure 19 - Temperature fluctuations in a GHE at 0.75 m depth during the second year (Ghent) 20 40 35 50

30 Temperature (C)

20

10

-10 0 40 80 120 160 200 Day of the year 240 280 320 360

Figure 20 - Temperature fluctuations in a GHE at 1.00 m depth during the second year (Ghent)

Finally, the COP is calculated. Figure 21 and Figure 22 show the COP and COP , respectively. As observed, the COP is yet again the highest for GHE with a length of 50 m at a depth of 0.50 m while the COP is the lowest. Since the heating operation predominates this combination seemed to be optimal.

15 |

0.50 13 12 11 COPH 10 09 08 07 06 10 20

0.75

1.00

30 40 Length GHE (m) Figure 21 - COPH Ghent 0.50 0.75 1.00

50

60

08

07 COPC 06 05 10 20 30 40 Length GHE (m) Figure 22 - COPC Ghent 50 60

Conclusions and recommendations

Computer simulations and analysis of water-to-water GSHP system with horizontal GHEs were carried out to meteorological conditions of Brno and Ghent for a typical family house of approximately 190 m living space, 2.9 kW of design heating load and 0.8 kW of design cooling load for Brno while 2.6 kW and 0.5 for Ghent, respectively. Moreover, the family house requires 33.1 and 0.184 GJ/year respectively for heating and cooling in Brno 37.2 and 0.0917 GJ/year in Ghent. For these conditions, the optimal GHE geometry for both regions comprises a length of 50 m at depth of 0.50 m. Though, this combination provides the lowest , the GSHP in this study will as mentioned above mainly operate in the heating mode. Therefore, this combination was concluded to be the most optimal. The results seems to indicate that with increasing depth, the reduces while the increases. Moreover, the higher the length, the higher the apart from the lower . The observation that the increases with length is supported by Tarnawski et al. [4]. However,

16 | that the reduces with increasing length conflicts with their results. This is due to an error in the simulation. Due to inadequate time, only a two-year operation period has been simulated while Tarnawski et al. [4] recommended to carry out all simulations up to three years and consider only the results from the third year for the study, since the ground thermal regime remains practically unchanged after the third year. Therefore, to achieve more accurate results, the third year should be simulated and the results analysed. Length and depth of the GHE are only two of the several parameters which influence the COP of a heat pump. Therefore, the other parameters should be investigated as well as well as the amount of options should be larger.
References

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17 | [Accessed 25 February 2013]. [11] Weather History for Weather Station IWEST-VL3 | Weather Underground, Wunderground, [Online]. http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=IWESTVL3&month=1&day=1&year=2009. [Accessed 24 May 2013]. [12] M. Fordsmand and A. Eggers-Lura, Analysis of the factors which determine the COP of a heat pump and a feasibility study on ways and means of increasing same., Charlottenlund, 1981. [13] J. Bose, J. Parker and F. McQuiston, Design/data manual for closed loop ground coupled heat pump systems, Atlanta: ASHRAE, 1985. Available: