An Evaluation and Prediction of Performance of Road Snow-melting System Utilized by Ground Source Heat Pump

Because of the climate changes and the development of building technologies, the cooling loads have been increased. Among the various renewable energies, geothermal energy is known as very useful and stable energy for heating and cooling of building. This study proposes a road snow-melting system of which heat is supplied from GSHP(Ground source heat pump) in viewpoint of the initial investment and annual running performance, which is also operating as a main facility of heating and cooling for common spaces. The results of this study is as followings. From the site measurement, it is found out that the road surface temperature above the geothermal heating pipe rose up to , which is the design temperature of road snow-melting, after 2 hours` operation and average COP(Coefficient of performance) was estimated as 3.5. The reliability of CFD has confirmed, because the temperature difference between results of CFD analysis and site measurement is only and the trend of temperature variation is quite similar. CFD analysis on the effect of pavement materials clearly show that more than 2 hours is needed for snow-melting, if the road is paved by ascon or concrete. But the road paved by brick is not reached to at all. To evaluate the feasibility of snow-melting system operated by a geothermal circulation which has not GSHP, the surface temperature of concrete-paved road rise up to after 2 hour and 40 minutes, and it does never increase to . And the roads paved by ascon and brick is maintained as below after 12 hours geothermal circulation.