A high-performance water-to-water heat pump for ground-source application was developed using a plate heat exchanger, a new type of compressor and refrigerant cycle with a liquid-gas heat exchanger. A performance design program used to compute the refrigerant cycle with a liquid-gas heat exchanger was created first. This simulation program could predict the heating/cooling capacity, electric power, and COP. This determined the surface area of the heat exchangers, compressor efficiency and displacement, etc. Second, a real heat pump was designed based on the results of the program, then built and tested to compare its performance with the simulation. As a result, a value of 5.5 was attained both for the cooling COP of the designed heat pump via the simulation and the measured cooling COP of the real heat pump.

Units: SI