Cooling characteristics of ground source heat pump with heat exchange methods

The objective of this study is to investigate the influence of the cooling performance for a water-to-water ground source heat pump (GSHP) by using the counter flow and parallel flow methods. The GSHP uses R-410A as a refrigerant, and its main components are a scroll compressor, plate heat exchangers as a condenser, an evaporator, a thermostatic expansion valve, a receiver, and an inverter. Based on our modeling results, the heat transfer rate of the counter flow evaporator is higher than that of the parallel flow evaporator for a heat exchanger length greater than 0.42 m. The evaporator length of the GSHP used in this study was set to over 0.5 m. The performance of the water-to-water GSHP was measured by varying the compressor speed and source-side entering water temperature (EWT). The cooling capacity of the GSHP increased with increased compressor RPMs and source side EWT. Also, using the counter flow method, compared to the parallel flow method, improves the COP by approximately 5.9% for an ISO 13256-2 rated condition.