Experimental study of the performance of a vertical and a horizontal ground loops coupled to a ground source heat pump system

The performance of vertical and horizontal ground loops coupled to a Ground-Source Heat Pump (GSHP) was investigated under four different scenarios. For this purpose, an experimental set-up was designed and constructed at the Archetype Sustainable houses in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. In the first two tests, the two vertical ground loops coupled to the GSHP were tested in heating, and cooling modes. In heating mode, the GSHP COP ranged between 2.7 and 3.15. In cooling mode, the GSHP performed better than the heating mode with COP range of 3.75 and 5.4. In the last two tests, two scenarios were tested to compare the horizontal and the vertical ground loops in cooling mode. In the first scenario, the ground loop flow was divided equally between the loops and the GSHP overall COP was 5.42. The last test used equal Reynolds number in both loops and the GSHP overall COP was 5.36.