A Ground Resistance for Vertical Bore Heat Exchangers With Groundwater Flow

Abstract

A new ground resistance was developed for use in existing vertical bore heat exchanger VBHEx design algorithms. The new ground resistance accounts for the added heat transfer mode of convection due to groundwater flow by using as its foundation the solution for a moving line heat source. The combined ground resistance is presented in terms of the dimensionless Fourier and Peclet parameters. Results show that significant convection heat transfer may occur within a variety of hydrogeological regimes, particularly when the Peclet number is larger than 0.01. Since the new model captures the influence of groundwater flow, the resulting ground resistance differs markedly from the conduction-only ground resistance currently used in many vertical borehole heat exchanger design algorithms.