A study on the performance of a geothermal heat exchanger under coupled heat conduction and groundwater advection

Being environmental friendly and with the potential of energy-efficiency, more and more ground-source heat pump (GSHP) systems are being widely used. However, the influence of groundwater advection on the performance of the geothermal heat exchanger (GHE) in a GSHP is not still clearly known. In this paper, the configuration of a vertical dual-function GHE used in an integrated soil cold storage and ground-source heat pump (ISCS&GSHP) system, which charged cold energy to soil at night and produced chilled water in daytime in summer, and hot water for heating in winter, is firstly presented. This is then followed by a report on a mathematical model for the GHE considering the impact of the coupled heat conduction and groundwater advection on the heat transfer between the GHE and its surrounding soil. The GHE model developed was then integrated into a previously developed simulation program for an ISCS&GSHP system, and the operating performances of the GHE in an ISCS&GSHP system having a vertical dual-function GHE have been studied by simulation and reported. These simulation results, firstly seen in open literature, are much helpful to the design of a GHE buried in soil and widely used in GSHP systems or ISCS&GSHP systems. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.