The short-term behavior of ground-coupled heat pump systems is important for design of ground loop heat exchangers, energy analysis of ground source heat pump systems, and design of hybrid ground source systems. This paper describes the development of short time-step temperature response factors for vertical ground loop heat exchangers as used in ground-coupled heat pump systems. The short time-step response factors allow for a direct evaluation of system energy consumption and electrical demand in hourly or shorter time intervals. The development of the temperature response factors is based on an analytically validated, transient two-dimensional implicit finite volume model designed for the simulation of heat transfer over a vertical U-tube ground heat exchanger. The short time-step response factors are implemented as part of a component model for TRNSYS and an example application is provided based on an actual building.

Units: Dual