• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.230-239
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• 2012

Ground-coupled heat pump (GCHP) systems utilize the immense renewable storage capacity of the ground as a heat source or sink to provide space heating, cooling, and domestic hot water. The main objective of the present study is to investigate the cooling and heating performance of a small scale GCHP system with horizontal ground heat exchanger (HGHE). In order to evaluate the performance, a water-to-air ground-source heat pump unit connected to a test room with a net floor area of 18.4 m2 and a volume of 64.4 m3 in the Korea Institute of Construction Technology ($37^{\circ}39'N$, $126^{\circ}48'E$) was designed and constructed. This GCHP system mainly consisted of slinky-type HGHE with a total length of 400 m, indoor heat pump, and measuring devices. The peak cooling and heating loads of the test room were 5.07 kW and 4.12 kW, respectively. The experimental results were obtained from March 15, 2011 to August 31, 2011 and the performance coefficients of the system were determined from the measured data. The overall seasonal performance factor (SPF) for cooling was 3.31 while the system delivered heating at a daily average performance coefficients of 2.82.