Simulation of External Environment of Air-Source Heat Pump Cluster Group for Cold Area Heating

Abstract As an efficient and clean heating technology, air-source heat pumps have been widely used in central heating in North China. A numerical simulation model of an air-source heat pump cluster was established, and the influence of the external environment and cluster configuration on the inlet air temperature of the heat pump cluster were studied. The external environment includes wind speed and direction, while the cluster configuration includes overhead height, number of clusters, and installation direction. The simulation results show that the inlet temperature of the heat pump cluster will decrease with the increase of environmental wind speed; The inlet temperature of the heat pump cluster in the longitudinal frontside wind direction is higher than that in the other two wind directions; The inlet air temperature of the heat pump cluster will increase with the increase of the height above ground, but when the overhead height is increased again after reaching a certain height (0.5 m), there will be no significant change in the inlet air temperature of the heat pump cluster. The more the heat pumps in the cluster, the lower the inlet air temperature of the middle position heat pump as compared to the environmental temperature. In a calm state, the arrangement of the finned coil evaporator of the heat pump cluster can increase the average inlet air temperature from 269.63 K inward to 269.85 K outward.