Influence of Backfill Air Gap on Soil Temperature Recovery in Ground coupled Heat Pumps

Air gap may easily emerge in the progress of backfill in ground heat exchange due to field operation problems. The single U tube three dimensional numerical heat transfer model is set up and there are 3 kinds of backfill air gap assumptions for computational analysis, which are the most common situations in practical projects. Different air gap situations will have considerable effects on soil heat transfer, especially the factor of soil temperature recovery performance, which is investigated in this research, and there is practical project operating data for the comparison confirmation with the theoretical calculation results in inlet and outlet water temperatures. It can be concluded that the backfill air gap will increase the soil average excess temperature in the period of recovery inside the place where the air gap is, and degrade the heat transfer performance of the ground heat exchange.