• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.26 no.7
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• pp.93-106
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• 2010

In performing a series of in-situ thermal response tests, the effective thermal conductivities of six vertical closed-loop ground heat exchangers were experimentally evaluated and compared one another, which were constructed in a test bed in Wonju. To compare thermal efficiency of the ground heat exchangers in field, the six boreholes were constructed with different construction conditions: grouting materials (cement vs. bentonite), different additives (silica sand vs. graphite) and the shape of pipe-sections (general U-loop type vs. 3 pipe-type). From the test results, it can be concluded that cement grouting has a higher effective thermal conductivity than bentonite grouting, and the efficiency of graphite better performs than silica sand as a thermally-enhancing addictive. In addition, a new 3 pipe-type heat exchanger provides less thermal interference between the inlet and outlet pipe than the conventional U-loop type heat exchanger, which results in superior thermal performance. Based on the results from the in-situ thermal response tests, a series of economic analyses have been made to show the applicability of the new addictives and 3 pipe-type heat exchanger.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.38-46
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• 2007

In order to characterize the thermal conductivity and viscosity of grout materials used for backfilling ground heat exchangers, nine bentonite grouts and cement grouts being adapted in the United State have been considered in this study. The bentonite grouts indicate that the thermal conductivity and viscosity increase with the content of bentonite or filler (silica sand). In addition, material segregation can be observed when the viscosity of grout is relatively low. The saturated cement grouts appear to possess much higher thermal conductivity than the saturated bentonite grouts, and the reduction of thermal conductivity in the cement grouts after drying specimens is less than the case of the bentonite grouts. Maintaining the moisture content of grouts is a crucial factor in enhancing the efficiency of ground heat exchangers.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.28-35
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• 2016

The in-situ thermal response test for the design of a ground heat exchanger of geothermal heat pumps have difficulty in predicting the outlet temperature according to the variation of conditions due to the expense and time. This paper suggests a 3-D CFD analysis method to predict the heat transfer performance of vertical type ground heat exchanger, which is mostly used in national, and the outlet temperature and the slope of two in-situ thermal response tests were compared to test the proposed CFD reliability. The results of CFD analysis showed that the outlet temperature was predicted to within $0.5^{\circ}C$ of the actual value and the slope was predicted to within 1.6%. The reliability of the CFD analysis method was confirmed using this process, and the outlet temperature prediction of the two in-situ thermal response tests was obtained by changing ${\pm}20%$ of the flow rate and the effective thermal conductivity conditions, respectively. The results of CFD analysis showed that the outlet temperature of Case 1 was 28.0 (-20%) and $29.6^{\circ}C$ (+20%) for the flow rate variation and $29.6^{\circ}C$ (-20%) and $28.0^{\circ}C$ (+20%) for the effective thermal conductivity variation, and the outlet temperature of Case 2 was 28.4 (-20%) and $29.8^{\circ}C$ (+20%) for the flow rate variation and $29.7^{\circ}C$(-20%) and $28.4^{\circ}C$(+20%) for the effective thermal conductivity variation.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.296-300
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• 2004

Performance evaluation and economic estimation were conducted on the water to water GSHP (Ground Source Heat Pump) installed in existing building. Ground heat exchanger was a closed vertical loop type and sized to be 5 boreholes and 100m depth per borehole. Operation efficiency of the system shows that, COP increased from 3.0 to 4.2 with entering water temperature in heating operation, however, COP decreased from 5.0 to 3.7 in cooling operation. Economic estimation was analyzed by LCC (Life Cycle Cost) method and it showed that GSHP could save 68% of cost compare to the conventional oil source. Thus, despite of the large amount of initial cost, GSHP has a economic advantage to the other energy sources.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.459-467
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• 2016

Due to the limited areal space for installation, borehole heat exchangers (BHEs) at depths deeper than 300 m are considered for geothermal heating and cooling in the urban area. The deep vertical closed-loop BHEs are unconventional due to the depth and the range of the typical installation depth is between 100 and 200 m in Korea. The BHE in the study consists of 50A (outer diameter 50 mm, SDR 11) PE U-tube pipe in a 150 mm diameter borehole with the depth of 300 m. In order to compensate the buoyancy caused by the low density of PE pipe ($0.94{\sim}0.96g/cm^3$) in the borehole filled with ground water, 10 weight band sets (4.6 kg/set) were attached to the bottom of U-tube. A thermal response test (TRT) and fundamental basic surveys on the thermophysical characteristics of the ground were conducted. Ground temperature measures around $15^{\circ}C$ from the surface to 100 m, and the geothermal gradient represents $1.9^{\circ}C/100m$ below 100 m. The TRT was conducted for 48 hours with 17.5 kW heat injection, 28.65 l/min at a circulation fluid flow rate indicates an average temperature difference $8.9^{\circ}C$ between inlet and outlet circulation fluid. The estimated thermophysical parameters are 3.0 W/mk of ground thermal conductivity and 0.104 mk/W of borehole thermal resistance. In the stepwise evaluation of TRT, the ground thermal conductivity was calculated at the standard deviation of 0.16 after the initial 13 hours. The sensitivity analysis on the borehole thermal resistance was also conducted with respect to the PE pipe diameter and the thermal conductivity of backfill material. The borehole thermal resistivity slightly decreased with the increase of the two parameters.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.583-587
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• 2009

This paper presents a series of numerical simulations on the thermal performance and sectional efficiency of a closed-loop vertical ground heat exchanger (U-loop) equipped in a geothermal heat pump system (GHP). A 3-D finite volume analysis (Fluent) was used to simulate the operating process of the closed-loop vertical ground heat exchanger by considering the effect of the thickness of HDPE pipe and grout thermal properties, distance between the inflow and outflow pipes, and the effectiveness of the latticed HDPE pipe system. It was observed that the thermal interference between the two strands of U-loop is of importance in determining the efficiency of the ground heat exchanger, and thus it is highly recommendable to modify the cross section configuration of the conventional U-loop system by including a thermally insulating latice between the two strands.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.29 no.10
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• pp.49-56
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• 2013

The use of geothermal energy has been increased for economic and environmental friendly utilization. Ground thermal conductivity and borehole thermal resistance are very important parameters in the design of geothermal heat pump system. This paper presents an experimental study of heat exchange rate of U and W type ground heat exchangers (GHEs) measured by thermal performance tests (TPTs). U and W type GHEs were installed in a partially saturated dredged soil deposit, and TPTs were conducted to evaluate heat exchange rates under 100-hr continuous operation condition. The heat exchange rates were also calculated by analytical models to estimate borehole thermal resistances and were compared with experimental results. It comes out that multi-pole and equivalent diameter (EQD) models resulted in more accurate agreement than shape factor (SF) model which is currently more often used.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.68-74
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• 2012

Investigation of the effective soil thermal conductivity($k$) is the first step in designing the ground loop heat exchanger(borehole) of a geothermal heat pump system. Another important factor is the borehole thermal resistance($R_b$). Thermal response tests offer a good method to determine the ground thermal properties for the total heat transport in the ground. The first step is measured for initial soil temperature. This is done by supplying a only pump power into a borehole heat exchanger. They need to supply into water unload heat power more than 30 minutes. In this study, the initial soil temperature was found to analysis $14.1{\sim}16.0^{\circ}C$,the ratio was 68.7% represented. In this case of $k$, was 2.1~3.0 $W/m{\cdot}k$, $R_b$ was 0.11~0.20 $m{\cdot}K/W$. In this work, it is also shown that the distribution of a soil thermal conductivity and borehole thermal resistance were on the influence of initial soil temperature. And soil thermal conductivity was related with factors of equation by linear least square method, borehole thermal resistance was on the influence of composite factors.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.392-399
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• 2011

Ground-coupled heat pump(GCHP) systems have been shown to be an environmentally-friendly, efficient alternative to traditional cooling and heating systems in both residential and commercial applications. Although some work related to performance evaluation of GCHP systems for commercial buildings has been done, relatively little has been reported on the residential applications. The aim of this study is to evaluate the cooling and heating performances of a vertical GCHP system applied to an artificial detached house($117\;m^2$) in Seoul. For this purpose, a typical design procedure was involved with a combination of design parameters such as building loads, heat pump capacity, borehole diameter, and ground thermal properties, etc. The cooling and heating performance simulation of the system was conducted with different prediction times of 8760 hours and 240 months. The performance characteristics including seasonal system COP, average annual power consumption, and temperature variations related to ground heat exchanger were calculated and compared.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.372-378
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• 2007

GHX (Geothermal Heat Exchanger) design which determines the performance and initial cost is the most important factor in ground source heat pump system. Performance of GHX is strongly dependent on the thermal resistance of soil, grout and pipe. In general, GHX design is based on the static simulation program. In this study, dynamic simulation has been peformed to analyze the variation of system performance for various GHX parameters. Line-source theory has been applied to calculate the variation of ground temperature. The averaged weather data measured during a 10-year period $(1991\sim2000)$ in Seoul is used to calculate cooling and heating loads of a building with a floor area of $100m^2$. The simulation results indicate that thermal properties of borehole play significant effect on the overall performance. Change of grout thermal conductivity from 0.4 to $3.0W/(m^{\circ}C)$ increases COP of heating by 9.4% and cooling by 17%. Change of soil thermal conductivity from 1.5 to $4.0W/(m^{\circ}C)$ increases COP of heating by 13.3% and cooling by 4.4%. Change of GHX(length from 100 to 200 m increases COP of heating by 10.6% and cooling by 10.2%. To study long term performance, dynamic simulation has been conducted for a 20-year period and the result showed that soil temperature decreases by $1^{\circ}C$, heating COP decreases by 2.7% and cooling COP decreases by 1.4%.