Proceedings of ASME 2012 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition IMECE2012 November 9-15, 2012, Houston, Texas,

USA

IMECE2012-93086

DRAFT: A NEW CONTROL STRATEGY TO IMPROVE THE GROUND SOURCE HEAT PUMPS EFFICIENCY WITH A RECYCLED PRODUCT

Amir Rezaei-Bazkiaei Department of Civil , Structural & Environmental Engineering University at Buffalo Buffalo, NY-14260 Email: ar92@buffalo.edu

Ehsan Dehghan-Niri Smart Structures Research Lab Department of Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering University at Buffalo Buffalo, NY 14260 Email: ehsandeh@buffalo.edu

Ebrahim M. Kolahdouz Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering University at Buffalo Buffalo, NY-14260 Email: mkolahdo@buffalo.edu

Gary F. Dargush Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering University at Buffalo Buffalo, NY-14260 Email: gdargush@buffalo.edu

A. Scott Weber Department of Civil , Structural & Environmental Engineering University at Buffalo Buffalo, NY-14260 Email: sweber@buffalo.edu

ABSTRACT Despite numerous efforts to impose control measures on the heat pump side of Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) systems, there has been little thought into the potential of control on the ground characteristics. This is perhaps because of a predisposition to believe that ground related works usually are associated with extra capital investment that makes any modication less favorable than making changes to the heat pump unit. An effective control strategy with a non-homogeneous soil prole for the ground side of horizontal GSHPs was investigated in this research. The model incorporates the effects of a variety of surface energy uxes to provide an accurate estimate of the ground thermal regime. The developed model was utilized successfully in conjunction with the MATLAB Genetic Algorithm (GA) toolbox to obtain the optimized operational parameters for a GSHP in a cold climate condition (Buffalo, NY). A properly sized and engineered non-homogeneous soil prole demonstrated the potential to boost the capacity of GSHP systems to a signicant

level. The potential benets of a recycled product of tire industry, Tire Derived Aggregate (TDA), as an insulation blanket was assessed via the optimization algorithm. TDA was demonstrated to be effective in heating mode in a cold climate environment by increasing the energy extraction rates from the ground by about 15% annual. The annual percentage increase in energy dissipation rate to the ground, in cooling season, with TDA blanket was 7.6%. The results are suggestive of the benecial application of a layered system to increase the performance of GSHPs. A shift in design perspective toward consideration of more control strategies for the ground pipe side of GSHPs is suggested based on the model results.

INTRODUCTION Heat pump sizing starts with the careful estimation of the heating/cooling loads for the prospect building via accepted methods such as the bin method. The bin method is based on a full survey of the total number of hours in a design year that a 1 Copyright c 2012 by ASME

Address

all correspondence to this author.

certain air temperature range (bin) occurs. The heating/cooling budget analysis forms the base for the peak load GSHP design. It is noteworthy that methods like bin method do not take into account the sequence or real-time occurrence of the peak load demand in time. In other words, the question is the duration of a worst case load condition rather than when and for how long the load is sustained. Therefore, it does not matter in such design procedures what the climate and/or source condition is before or after the worst case condition, a matter that can inuence the overall performance of the system. Moreover, these methods usually assume a constant source/sink strength (ground temperature) based on the maximum and minimum observed data or semi-experimental formulas [1] (equations 1 and 2) which again do not reect on the dynamic variation of the boundary conditions and the time dependent nature of the systems functionality. The inherent tendency of the traditional design methods to stray from the path of optimized operation has made the dynamic, real-time analysis of GSHPs the focus of several recent research studies [2, 3]. The following design steps after the heat budget analysis involve ground pipe sizing and heat pump selection.

T f ,ih = T f ,imin +

T f ,imean T f ,imin (Tair Tairmax ) Tairmean Tairmin

(1)

T f ,ic = T f ,imean +

T f ,imax T f ,imean (Tair Tairmean ) Tairmax Tairmean

(2)

where T f ,ih : entering water temperature to the ground in heating mode, T f ,ic : entering water temperature to the ground in cooling mode, T f ,imin : minimum design entering water temperature in heating, T f ,imean : average design entering water temperature in heating or cooling, T f ,imax : maximum design entering water temperature in cooling, Tairmean : average annual ambient air temperature, Tairmin : minimum annual ambient air temperature, Tairmax : maximum annual ambient air temperature, Tair : air temperature at the time of simulation With the ever increasing need for preserving energy, the idea of utilizing capacity control strategies for GSHPs was initiated by researchers about two decades ago [4]. The capacity control practices deal with the most feasible engineering options to meet dynamically the building load requirements and minimize the waste energy in the heating/conditioning process. As Madani summarizes [5], capacity control usually involves either the control on the components of a GSHP system (e.g. the compressor, condenser, ground pipes, etc.) or a change in design congurations for different seasons or advanced control algorithms. The complex nature of the interplay between the units of a GSHP suggests that changes in operational parameters of 2

one unit can affect the overall performance of the system. From the modeling point of view, researchers have tried to tackle these complexities by dynamically modeling the interactions between these units via packaged softwares such as TRNSYS [2, 610] or in combination with thermodynamic data base models such as EES [3] or by self developed programs [11] which are capable of modeling the dynamic interplay between these units. The general structure of such modeling efforts often consists of separate rst-level models (e.g. ground pipe and heat pump) which each have sub-models of second-level (e.g. compressor, evaporator, etc.) with higher details. The functional relationship between the sub-models is constructed via operational parameters such as water/brine and refrigerant ow rates. The level of complexity of these sub-models signicantly depends on the purpose of the modeling effort as described by Madani [5]. The focus of this paper is on the analysis of the system efciency and optimization via control on the source/sink (ground) side with a secondary focus on the heat pump unit. Simple semiempirical equations for the entering water temperature to the pump in heating and cooling seasons, described in Eqn. (1) and Eqn. (2) respectively, were adopted from the international ground source heat pump association (IGSHPA) design manual [1] to make the link between the ground pipe and the heat pump. The ground pipe model, on the other hand, is an elaborate version of a surface energy balance model, which unlike thermal resistance method, is capable of solving for the temperature distribution of the entire soil prole to obtain the outlet water temperature from the ground pipes. A detailed description of the surface energy balance equations, parameters and the solution methods is presented in [12]. A summary of the heat uxes is listed in the surface energies section. Our motivation behind the development of this ground model arises from the desire to investigate the potential benets of a non-homogeneous soil prole on the ground pipe performance. The developed model was employed to investigate the effectiveness of utilization of a recycled product of tire industry as an insulation material above the burial depth of the ground pipes. Tire Derived Aggregate (TDA) is the proposed insulation material to be used as the intermediate layer in the nonhomogeneous model. TDA mainly consists of chopped pieces of used tires in a variety of nominal sizes ranging from 1 to above 5 inches [13]. The idea of employment of TDA, also referred to as tire chips, tire shreds, and tire mulch, in civil engineering applications was rst initiated by Humphrey [14]. New applications for TDA, mostly in civil engineering, have been proposed based on its unique physical characteristics. TDAs relatively low density compared to conventional backll makes it a viable alternative ll material where a lighter ll material is desired in construction [15]. Its low thermal conductivity on the other hand, provoked the thought of utilizing TDA as an alternative insulation material in road base insulation and some agricultural applications to modulate temperature uctuation on the soil surCopyright c 2012 by ASME

face [13, 14, 16]. There are only a few studies in the literature that focus on the properties of TDA measuring physical properties [16], compaction densities for different sizes of chips [13], and thermal properties of tire chip samples [13, 17, 18]. A list of thermal properties and density of tire shreds reported in these studies is presented in Table 1. A thermal conductivity value of 0.29 W m1C1 , specic heat of 500 JKg1C1 and density of 720 Kgm3 were chosen as representative properties of TDA material for the purpose of the analyses in this paper.
TABLE 1.
Material

Qli = Incoming long wave radiation (Watts) Qsi = Solar radiation reaching the surface of earth (Watts) Q p = Heat ux due to precipitation (Watts)

For a detailed description of each heat ux input parameters and formulas refer to [12]. Ground pipe modeling The ground pipe conguration consists of a horizontal pipe of total length of 61 meters (L) and 3 inch diameter, 3 m dis4 tance between inlet and outlet, buried at the depth of 2 m ( j pipe ), with the working uid ow rate of 3 gallons per minute (0.19 kg/s). Assuming there is no thermal interaction between pipes, the solution domain (Figure 1) was considered to be from the center line of the pipe to the mid-span of the distance between pipes (1.5 m), in the x-direction, and from ground surface to the fareld (5 m) in the y-direction. Soil thermal conductivity (Ks ) and thermal diffusivity (s ) were selected based on the soil and rock classication guideline [21] to be equal to 1.67 W m1 K 1 and 66 108 m2 s1 , respectively.

TDA thermal and physical properties in literature

Thermal conductivity (W m1C1 ) Specic heat (JKg1C1 ) NA NA 1.15 507 Density (Kgm3 ) 513 1060-1100 720 641

Tire chips [13] Tire chips [16] Tire chips [17] Tire shred [18]

0.149-0.164 NA 0.29 0.564

MATERIAL AND METHODS A brief summary of the surface energy balance equations are rst introduced. The second subsection describes the ground pipe specications and also the method pipes are modeled from the physical domain into the numerical domain. Numerical solution of the ground pipe model and the parameter settings for the genetic algorithm are described in the following sections. Surface energies The surface boundary condition takes into account the effects of energy balance due to variety of mechanisms responsible for surface-ambient heat interaction. The total energy balance on the ground surface (Qt ,Watts) can be written as [19, 20]:

Qt = Qc + Qe + Qh + Qle + Qli + Qsi + Q p

(3)

Qc = Conduction heat ux through snow layer or ground surface (Watts) Qe = Turbulent exchange of latent heat (Watts) Qh = Turbulent exchange of sensible heat (Watts) Qle = Emitted long wave radiation heat ux (Watts)

FIGURE 1. [12]

Solution domain discretization and TDA conguration

To account for the three-dimensional behavior of the pipe and the surrounding soil, the effect of the working uid ow rate was considered along the pipe direction. The third dimension of the problem was modeled by splitting the physical domain in the pipe direction into a series of cross sections (slices) of the soil 3 Copyright c 2012 by ASME

prole for each time step, including the nodal temperature of the uid at the pipes location. Figure 2 shows how the slices are spaced in the pipe direction to cover the temperature distribution of the entire 3D domain. At each time step, the nodal temperatures of each cross section were obtained and subsequently updated for the next slice along the pipes length via Eqn. (4) to achieve a temperature distribution of soil and uid at the end of the pipe (L). The same process was repeated for the next time steps until the end of the simulation time. A schematic representation of the cross sections was depicted earlier Figure 1. Refer to [12] for a detailed description of the numerical solution methods.

ent information of the objective function; instead it uses a population of design points and randomly utilizes information from each generation to the subsequent one; and, there is a potential to make the population converge to the Pareto-optimal set. The latter property is a crucial appeal of GA in multi-objective optimization problems that enables us to use GA in combination with a Pareto-set lter [23] to obtain a near approximation of the entire set of non-dominated solutions. The specications of the GA implementation in the present study are listed in Table 2.
TABLE 2.
PopulationSize Generations

Gaoptimset options used in the analysis

500 50 doubleVector 2 0.7 forward 15 0.1 CreationFcn FitnessScalingFcn SelectionFcn CrossoverFcn MutationFcn Display UseParallel @gacreationuniform @tscalingprop @selectiontournament @crossoversinglepoint (@mutationuniform,.02) iter always

T f ,out

Ks L mC p, f = Ts (Ts T f ,i )e

(4)

PopulationType EliteCount CrossoverFraction

where is the thermal diffusivity of the medium through which heat travels, T f ,out is the uid temperature exiting a pipe of length L (m). Ts is the surrounding soil temperature, T f ,i is the initial water temperature entering the pipe, and Ks is the soil thermal conductivity (W m1C1 ). m is the mass ow rate (Kgs1 ) and C p, f is the specic heat of the working uid (Jkg1 C1 ).

MigrationDirection MigrationInterval MigrationFraction

FIGURE 2.

Schematic of slices of 3D domain in pipe directions [12]

GENETIC ALGORITHM The idea of utilization of Genetic Algorithm (GA) in engineering applications was inspired by natural selection. This selection represents the concept of the higher survival chance of the ttest individual in its environment through successive generations to nd the optimal design parameters among the others. More information about GA optimization can be found in [22]. The main advantages of GA over traditional optimization algorithms are that it does not require and does not depend on gradi4

Given the complex nature of the relationships between a GSHP unit, designers often should heavily rely on their level of experience to select the best heat pump design. Even with a huge deal of experience, these designs are potentially distant from the required heating loads of a building due to the common practice peak load design criteria. Several researchers in the heat transfer literature have come to the conclusion that optimization schemes can benet the design process where the effects of the climatic conditions is to be closely considered in an efcient design process [2429]. In their comprehensive work on vertical [27] and horizontal [28] ground source heat pumps, Sanaye modeled the thermodynamic cycle of the heat pump in conjunction with the thermal resistance pipe model to obtain the optimized operational parameters. Sayyaadi does a similar study via exergy analysis of a vertical ground source heat pump [29]. Authors of this paper are specically concerned with the effects of the climatic conditions on the selection of the optimized operational parameters for a horizontal GSHP in the presence of a non-homogeneous soil prole. The optimization algorithm is supposed to provide the designers of the system with benecial information regarding the ground pipe design where the absence of the experience can cause a wide deviation from the optimized cost and operation path. To evaluate the potential benets of the intermediate layer in a cold climate, Buffalo weather conditions were selected to perform the optimization analysis. Buffalos climate condition requires space heating for majority of the year (550 coolingCopyright c 2012 by ASME

degree-days), so Buffalo was assumed a heating dominated city with eight months heating (starting on October). To simplify the introduction of the weather data, the air and dew-pint temperature, and solar radiation values for Buffalo were introduced to the model via estimation of these inputs by cosine functions (Eqns. 5, 6, and 7). Weather data were obtained form the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center (NOHRSC) and curve-tting was undertaken in Microsoft Excel environment to obtain the input parameters to the cosine models. A summary of the input parameters to the model is presented in Table 3. Annual variations of ambient air temperature and solar radiation for Buffalo region are depicted in Figures 3 and 4, respectively.
TABLE 3. Weather data for Buffalo as input to the model

ation, and dew is the tted cosine model phase difference for dew-point temperature. Qsi = Qsiavg + Qsiamp cos(2 Q t si ) P 12 (7)

where Qsiavg is the average annual solar radiation reaching the surface, Qsiamp is the amplitude of uctuation of the solar radiation throughout the year, and the Qsi is the tted cosine model phase difference for radiation.

25

City Taavg (C) Taamp (C)

Buffalo
20

Buffalo

9.3 14.1 10.1 4.3 12.2 10.2 142

Air temperature (Degrees C)

15

air (month) Tdewavg (C) Tdewamp (C) dew (month) Qsiavg (W m2 ) Qsiamp (W m2 ) Qsi (month) Us (ms1 )

10

5 0

50

100

150 200 250 Days (starting on October 1st)

300

350

FIGURE 3.

Annual Buffalo air temperature variation

75 9.2 4.2
220 200

Buffalo

Tair = Taavg + Taamp cos(2

t air ) P 12

(5)

Solar radiation (W/m2)

180 160 140 120 100 80 60 0

where Taavg is the average annual air temperature, Taamp is the amplitude of uctuation of annual air temperature, and air is the tted cosine model phase difference for air temperature, calculated based on the start time of the modeling on October rst (the assumed heating season start time).

50

100

150 200 250 Days (starting on October 1st)

300

350

Tdewpoint = Tdewavg + Tdewamp cos(2

dew t ) P 12

(6)

FIGURE 4.

Annual Buffalo solar radiation variation

where Tdewavg is the average annual dew-point temperature, Tdewamp is the amplitude of annual dew-point temperature vari5

A genetic algorithm (GA) optimization scheme was designed to obtain the optimum values of the intermediate layer Copyright c 2012 by ASME

conguration (thickness and position), working uid type, and inlet uid temperature ranges. The results of the simulation will provide insights on the benets returned from the introduction of an intermediate layer on the performance of a GSHP throughout the year. The model outputs will clarify what are the optimal properties and conguration of the intermediate layer and what are the optimal entering water temperatures to the ground throughout the year to achieve the maximal efciency. The ultimate motivation behind the analysis is to determine whether the operating parameters for different months of the year are in a range that conrms the benets of utilization of a capacity control strategy or a set of selected operational parameters can be used for all months without deviating from the optimized condition. Seven input variables (decision variables) were chosen to feed the core nite difference model in each run of the GA. These inputs comprise working uid properties, minimum, mean and maximum entering water temperature values, the intermediate layer thickness, position and thermal properties. To let the evolutionary algorithm search in a broader spectrum of potential answers, the algorithm was allowed to choose between a range of practical working uid properties (Table 4, extracted from the IGSHPA guideline [1]) and also a range of common soil properties in ground heat pumps (Table 5, extracted from the manual for the soil and rock classication for design of ground heat pumps [21]). The values of heat extraction/dissipation rates were calculated based on Eqn. (8) for each run after selection of these avg parameters. The time averaged values of outlet (Tout ) and inavg let (Tin ) working uid temperatures for the simulation period (monthly or seasonal) are used to calculate energy extraction/dissipation rates in heating/cooling modes. The heat pump work was calculated based on the friction factor and Reynolds number described in [30]. The objective function used in the simulation is equal to the reciprocal of difference between the energy extraction rate and the circulating pump energy consumption rate. A single-objective genetic algorithm model was used subsequently to search for the parameters that minimize the objective function or, in other words, maximize the net energy extraction/dissipation rates. It was assumed that maximum heating/cooling energy demand from the ground pipes does not exceed 1.5 Kw in any of the cities while the optimization was aimed towards maximizing the extraction/dissipation rates. A population size of 500 and 50 generation was selected for each run of the model. A total number of 32 processors of 48 GB memory were used for each monthly run of the model which resulted in runtime of about 7 hours. A total number of 64 processors of 48 GB memory were used for each annual run which resulted in the runtime of about 65 hours for each year. 6

avg avg Energy = m C p, f (Tout Tin )

(8)

TABLE 5.

Intermediate layer thermal properties

Index number

Intermediate material

Thermal conductivity (W m1C1 )

Thermal diffusivity (cm2 s1 )108 58 45 54 49 66 93

1 2 3 4 5 6

TDA Sand Clay Loam Saturated silt or clay Saturated sand

0.29 0.77 1.11 0.91 1.67 2.5

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The main motive behind doing the optimization separately for each month was to have an estimate of what the range of the optimal operating parameters are and how the optimal parameters vary from month to month. The selection of the intermediate layer material type by the algorithm assures a nonhomogeneous prole that provides the optimum performance. The optimized monthly parameters for Buffalo are presented in Table 6. Columns in Table 6 contain the optimized values of the variables introduced to the algorithm. Columns 2-5 contain entering water parameters where columns 6-8 contain the intermediate layer parameters. The last two columns contain the energy extraction rates from the ground with the parameter values specied in other columns plus the percent difference between the calculated energy rates and the corresponding values for the homogeneous (non TDA) soil prole. Values of the minimum (T f ,imin ) and average (T f ,imean ) monthly entering water temperatures to the ground are presented in columns 3 and 5 for the rst eight heating months whereas the maximum ( T f ,imax ) and average (T f ,imean ) entering water temperatures to the pipe in the four cooling months are in columns 4 and 5. Based on the results, TDA was selected as the dominant intermediate layer for eight months of the year of which ve months are in heating season. In the cooling season, TDA was not selected only in July where the saturated sand tends to exhibit a dominant effect as an intermediate layer. Copyright c 2012 by ASME

TABLE 4.

Working uid properties

Index number

Fluid

Thermal conductivity (W m1C1 )

Specic heat (JKg1C1 ) 4183 4140 4100 4060 4020

Density (Kgm3 ) 998.3 1010 1010 1020 1020

Dynamic viscosity (Kgm1 s1 ) 103 1 1.5 1.9 3 6.3

1 2 3 4 5

Water 6 % Propylene-glycol and water 13 % Propylene-glycol and water 18 % Propylene-glycol and water 24 % Propylene-glycol and water
TABLE 6.
Month Fluid (index) Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Avg. Heating Avg. Cooling 3 1 2 2 2 1 3 3 1 2 4 4 -1 42.8

0.6 0.476 0.432 0.408 0.389

Genetic Algorithm simulation results for each month of the design year
T f ,imin (C) 4.0 -3.0 -3.0 -3.0 -3.0 -3.0 -2.6 4.7 40.4 42.4 43.0 45.6 T f ,imax (C) T f ,imean (C) 5.2 5.2 5.5 8.0 6.8 5.2 5.2 5.2 35.8 32.5 41.6 34.5 5.9 36.1 Thickness (m) 0.4 0.7 0.9 1.0 1.0 0.5 0.8 0.4 0.5 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.7 0.4 Position (m) 1.4 0.6 0.5 0.5 0.7 1.0 1.0 1.3 0.5 1.4 1.0 0.5 0.8 0.8 Intermediate material Saturated sand TDA TDA TDA TDA TDA Saturated sand Saturated sand TDA Saturated sand TDA TDA Energy (Watt) 558 492 515 474 375 252 179 295 1500 1500 1500 1500 393 1500 6.5 4.7 13.2 18.8 19.4 6.8 9.1 11.7 2.5 1.2 1.2 1.3 %

One interesting observation from the monthly results is that only the two intermediate materials with lowest and highest thermal conductivities were selected as the choice blanket material through the optimization algorithm. The fact that TDA (the least conductive) or saturated sand (the most conductive) were selected among the provided list of intermediate material suggests that the ground pipes can benet from a blanket above the pipe burial depth throughout the year but not necessarily from the one 7

with highest insulation properties. It should be noted that this modeling procedure does not take into account other characteristics of either of the TDA or saturated sand materials. Characteristics such as the porosity and water holding capacity which might potentially contribute to considerably different performance results than that only based on the heat conduction in the soil medium. TDAs porous structure can potentially enhance the moisture migration to the unCopyright c 2012 by ASME

TABLE 7.

Input parameters from Genetic Algorithm simulation to obtain optimal annual energy rates
T f ,imin (C) -2.3 T f ,imeanheating (C) 7.0 Clay energy (Watt) 274 1375 Thickness (m) 0.5 Homog. energy (Watt) 280 1391 Heating Cooling 15.7 7.6 -2.1 -1.2 Position (m) 0.3 Mode T f ,imax (C) 45.7 % TDA T f ,imeancooling (C) 31.7 % Clay

TDA energy (Watt) 324 1497

derlying layers of soil where higher moisture can contribute to higher thermal conductivities of the soil around the pipes. It is expected that this characteristics of TDA has a more substantial effect in the summer time specially in regions with less rainfall events. Authors are currently in the process of installation of a eld experiment to compare TDA blanket to a conventional backll control section to verify other potential enhancements on GSHP performance by utilization of the TDA layer. The values in the last column in Table 6 represent the percentage energy extraction/dissipation rate increase compared to the homogenous soil prole in different months. The percentages increase in energy extraction rate for the coldest months in Buffalo (Jan-Feb) are as high as 18-19%. This nding can be translated in the potential for higher efciency achievement with a non-homogeneous soil prole in heating season in Buffalo. Based on the results, relatively small efciency improvements are achievable with the non-homogeneous soil prole for cooling purposes in warmer months of the year. It should be noted that the performance of the homogeneous system is very close to the maximum expected cooling capacity (1500 Watts) in warmest months of the year which contributes to the marginal improvements with a non-homogeneous soil prole. If the designed ground pipe network was supposed to provide higher energy rates, the percentage increase in energy extraction rates would probably be higher and more pronounced with the nonhomogeneous soil prole. After performing the analysis for each month and gaining adequate knowledge of the relationship between selected variables, the next step of the modeling focused on nding the optimal values of the inlet uid temperature and the conguration of the intermediate layer for year-round optimization. Knowing what the two dominant choices of the algorithm for the intermediate blanket are, separate runs of the model with TDA were executed to compare the results with the homogeneous and saturated sand soil proles. The working uid properties were set to 13% Propylene-glycol and water mixture for the annual runs. The existing knowledge of the system from monthly results helped constructing a more efcient optimization scheme with less vari8

ables for the annual runs. The goal for this step was to obtain the optimal values of temperatures and intermediate layer conguration by optimizing the energy extraction/dissipation for the whole year. This approach provides the designer with the optimized working uid temperatures and intermediate layers conguration which yields the best performance. The results of the annual optimization are presented in Table 7. The percentages in the Table 7 refer to the percent increase in the energy extraction/dissipation rates compared to the homogeneous soil prole. The obtained optimized temperature values and intermediate layer conguration for TDA were used to run the homogeneous and saturated sand scenarios for the sake of comparison. The algorithm yields higher maximum and average temperature values for heating season where compared to average monthly values (Table 6) to obtain the maximum performance over the entire season. The optimized annual TDA thickness and positions are relatively smaller than the values obtained in the monthly optimization. The average annual attainable energy rates are also comparatively lower for the annual run compared to monthly values. The values of the annual energy rates with TDA and saturated sand compared to the homogeneous case suggest considerably lower annual performance with clay for both heating and cooling season in cold climates as typied by Buffalo (Table 7). TDA exhibits higher performance in heating than cooling (15.7 versus 7.6). The comparison between the optimized annual heating/cooling energy rates with the monthly values shows that the optimization algorithm yields values that stray from the optimized monthly values. This is because it is more challenging for the algorithm to nd operational parameters which level the difference between seasonal energy rates and highest achievable monthly values. This causes the annual energy rates to be relatively lower than the ones attainable if the monthly control on the operating parameters (working uid temperatures and intermediate layer conguration) was an option. These ndings suggest that utilization of control strategies which allow the heat pumps functionality with variable working uid temperatures (or variable refrigCopyright c 2012 by ASME

erant ow schemes) in different seasons can improve the overall performance of the GSHP.

CONCLUSIONS Performance of a GHSP system with a non-homogeneous soil prole was examined via GA optimization algorithm. The evolutionary algorithm was given a range of working uid properties, intermediate layer thermal properties, a range of operating temperatures, and the intermediate layer conguration to search for the optimized condition of the system. The optimization process was performed for Buffalo weather data. A summary of ndings are listed below: A generic non-homogeneous soil prole showed the potential for signicant GSHP performance improvement TDA demonstrated higher benets in colder climates and with more highlighted impact in heating season. TDA demonstrated a marginal enhancement during cooling cycles due to insignicant difference between achievable energy extraction rates with the non-homogeneous and homogeneous cases. The annual optimized energy rates are lower than monthly values suggesting the necessity of a monthly operation control strategy. Aside from the intermediate layer conguration which can not be optimized after construction, entering water temperatures to the ground should be controlled via multi-stage compressors and/or variable speed pumps to achieve the near-optimal GSHP operation.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT Partial funding for this research was provided by Empire State Developments Environmental Services Unit through the New York State Tire Derived Aggregate Program at the University at Buffalos Center for Integrated Waste Management: www.tdanys.buffalo.edu/UB. Authors would like to thank Dr. Keneth Fishman and Mr. Louis Zicari from the Center for Integrated Waste Management for their constant support and continuing contribution to this project.

References [1] IGSHPA, 2009. Ground source heat pump residential and light commercial design and installation guide. International Ground Source Heat Pump Association, Oklahama State University, Division of Engineering Technology. [2] Zogou, O., and Stamatelos, A., 2007. Optimization of thermal performance of a building with ground source heat pump system. Energy conversion and management, 48(11), pp. 28532863. 9

[3] Madani, H., Claesson, J., and Lundqvist, P., 2011. Capacity control in ground source heat pump systems part II: Comparative analysis between on/off controlled and variable capacity systems. International Journal of Refrigeration, 34(8), May, pp. 19341942. [4] Qureshi, T., 1996. Variable-speed capacity control in refrigeration systems. Applied Thermal Engineering, 16(2), pp. 103113. [5] Madani, H., Claesson, J., and Lundqvist, P., 2011. Capacity control in ground source heat pump systems: Part I: modeling and simulation. International Journal of Refrigeration, 34(6), Sept., pp. 13381347. [6] Shonder, J. A., 2001. Selecting the Design Entering Water Temperature for Vertical. Geothermal Heat Pumps in Cooling-Dominated Applications.. ASHRAE Annual Meeting, p. 16p. [7] Siddiqui, O., Fung, A., Tse, H., and Zhang, D., 2009. Modelling of the net zero energy town house in toronto using trnsys, and an analysis of the impact using thermal mass. In 2008 Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Energy Sustainability, ES 2008, Vol. 2, pp. 297 304. [8] Conlin, F., Johnson, W. S., and Wix, S., 1986. A TRNSYS/GROCS Simulation of a Horizontal Coil GroundCoupled Heat Pump. Journal of Solar Energy Engineering, 108(3), pp. 185191. [9] Lee, C., 2010. Dynamic performance of ground-source heat pumps tted with frequency inverters for part-load control. Applied Energy, 87(11), Nov., pp. 35073513. [10] Kjellsson, E., Hellstr m, G., and Perers, B., 2010. Optio mization of systems with the combination of ground-source heat pump and solar collectors in dwellings. Energy, 35(6), June, pp. 26672673. [11] Kapadia, R. G., Jain, S., and Agarwal, R. S., 2009. Transient characteristics of split air-conditioning systems using R-22 and R-410A as refrigerants. HVAC and R Research, 15(3), pp. 617649. [12] Rezaei B., A., Kolahdouz, E. M., Dargush, G. F., and Weber, A. S., 2012. Ground source heat pump pipe performance with Tire Derived Aggregate. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 55(11-12), May, pp. 2844 2853. [13] Shao, J., and Zarling, J., 1995. Thermal conductivity of recycled tire rubber to be used as insulating ll beneath roadways. Tech. rep., Institute of Northern Engineering, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks. [14] Lawrence, B., Humphrey, D., and Chen, L.-H., 1999. Field Trial of Tire Shreds as Insulation for Paved Roads. In Cold Regions Engineering@ sPutting Research into Practice, ASCE, pp. 428439. [15] Humphrey, D., 2002. Tire Shreds as Lightweight Fill for Retaining WallsResults of Full Scale Field Trials. InterCopyright c 2012 by ASME

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

[23]

[24]

[25]

[26]

[27]

[28]

national Workshop on Lightweight Geomaterials,, pp. 261 268. Moo-young, H., Sellasie, K., Zeroka, D., and Sabnis, G., 2003. Physical and Chemical Properties of Recycled Tire Shreds for Use in Construction. Journal of Environmental Engineering(October), pp. 921929. Humphrey, D., Fiske, A., and Eaton, R., 2002. Backcalculation of Thermal Conductivity of Tire Chips from Instrumented Test Section. Transportation Research Board 81st Annual Meeting(02). Wappett, H. L., and Zornberg, J. G., 2006. Full Scale Monitoring for Assessment of Exothermal Reactions in Waste Tires Final Report. Tech. Rep. 27, Recycled Materials Resource Center, Project No . 27, University of Texas, Austin. Ling, F., and Zhang, T., 2004. A numerical model for surface energy balance and thermal regime of the active layer and permafrost containing unfrozen water. Cold Regions Science and Technology, 38(1), pp. 115. Liston, G. E., and Hall, D. K., 1995. An energybalance model of lake-ice evolution. Journal of Glaciology, 41(138), pp. 373382. Bose, J., 1989. Soil and rock classication for the design of ground-coupled heat pump systems-eld manual. Electric Power Research Institute Special Report, EPRI CU6600. Goldberg, D., 1989. Genetic Algorithms in Search; Optimization and Machine Learning. Addison-Wesley, Massachusetts. Cheng FY, L. D., 1997. Multiobjectve optimization design with Pareto genetic algorithm.. Journal of Structural Engineering, 123, pp. 12521261. Kilkis, B. I., 2004. An Exergy Aware Optimization and Control Algorithm for Sustainable Buildings. International Journal of Green Energy, 1(1), Dec., pp. 6577. Lohan, J., Burke, N., and Greene, M., 2006. Climate variables that inuence the thermal performance of horizontal collector ground source heat pumps. In 8th Biennial ASME Conference on Engineering Systems Design and Analysis, Proceedings of 8th Biennial ASME Conference on Engineering Systems Design and Analysis, ESDA2006, ASME, pp. 175183. Pertzborn, A., Nellis, G., and Klein, S., 2011. Impact of weather variation on ground-source heat pump design. HVAC&R Research, 17(2), Apr., pp. 174185. Sanaye, S., and Niroomand, B., 2009. Thermal-economic modeling and optimization of vertical ground-coupled heat pump. Energy Conversion and Management, 50(4), Apr., pp. 11361147. Sanaye, S., and Niroomand, B., 2010. Horizontal ground coupled heat pump: Thermal-economic modeling and optimization. Energy Conversion and Management, 51(12), Dec., pp. 26002612. 10

[29] Sayyaadi, H., and Amlashi, E., 2009. Multi-objective optimization of a vertical ground source heat pump using evolutionary algorithm. Energy Conversion and, 50(8), pp. 20352046. [30] S, Kakac; H., L., 2002. Heat exchangers: selection, rating and thermal design., 2nd ed. CRC Press.

Copyright c 2012 by ASME