EXPERIMENTAL THERMAL PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF NANOFLUID ASSISTED SLINKY GROUND HEAT EXCHANGER IN SPACE COOLING APPLICATION

Abstract

Ground source heat pump has made a severe breakthrough in space conditioning applications due to their high energy efficiency, and expectations for these systems have increased due to using renewable energy. Concerning the increasing expectation, researchers and engineers have increased their research on these systems and focused on cost and efficiency. The efficiency of the ground source heat pump system is directly related to the ground heat exchanger loop, which provides the thermal connection between the heat pump and the ground, and increasing the effectiveness of the ground heat exchanger can be achieved with a nanofluid-based heat transfer fluid. On the other hand, as a ground source heat pump system component, ground heat exchangers have very different design configurations. Among the various configurations, slinky ground heat exchangers are of great interest due to their higher heat transfer efficiency and reduced installation space requirements compared to traditional straight pipe configurations. In this study, the effect of nanofluids on increasing the effectiveness of slinky ground heat exchangers was experimentally investigated and compared with the results obtained using conventional heat transfer fluids. The results obtained from the experimental study determined that using nanofluid at a rate of 0.1% as a heat transfer fluid in slinky ground heat exchangers in cooling applications increased the average effectiveness by about 20%.