Study on the Representative Borehole in Ground Heat Exchanger Design

In view of the fact that the large-scale projects of the ground-coupled heat pump systems become more popular, a new concept is proposed that a representative borehole takes the place of the least-favorable borehole in thermal analysis of the ground heat exchangers so that more precise designs and simulations may be achieved. Borehole temperatures and their average are calculated in fields with multiple boreholes, and the mean square error coefficient is devised in order to analyze the imbalance between the boreholes. Conclusions are obtained to locate the representative borehole in different configurations of the borehole fields.