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Abstract

In early 2019, Henderson County School Corporation awarded the design of their new school, Jefferson Elementary School to Hafer, an engineering and architectural firm located in Evansville, Indiana. One request Henderson County School Corporation had, was to utilize a geothermal system for the heating, ventilation and air conditioning of the new school. As an employee of Hafer under the mechanical engineering department, Chris McDonald was assigned to the Jefferson Elementary School in February 2019 and decided to use the geothermal system as his senior capstone design project. His project focuses on the design and sizing of the geothermal system which includes: the geothermal field, field pumps, building pumps, water source heat pumps (WSHP's) as well an outside air unit which will utilize an energy recovery wheel. Building load calculations were completed by the professional Engineer (PE) prior to Chris being assigned to the project; these building load calculations were used in the design and sizing for the geothermal system. In sizing the geothermal field, a geothermal contractor was hired to drill a test hole and run a thermal analysis on the site. From the test results of the thermal analysis and the building cooling load, it was calculated a total of 72 loops were required. A 20% glycol solution is pumped through the geothermal field to the building where the building pump pumps the solution to the WSHP's to provide the heating and cooling for the building. It was calculated that the geothermal field pump needed 650 gpm and 90 feet of head to provide proper flow to the field. The building pump required 500 gpm and 65 feet of head to satisfy the WSHP's. The sizing of the WSHP's were calculated from the building load calculations for each of the zones they were dedicated to. The average size of the WSHP's was 2 Tons. Last was the sizing of the outside air unit, to conform to the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air- Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) standard; Jefferson Elementary required 7,500 cfm of outside air. The calculated values were sent to local industry representatives to make the selections of the equipment for the geothermal loop. The geothermal system design for Jefferson Elementary School was completed and submitted to Henderson County School Corporation on October 20*^, 2019. Currently the project is pending approval by the Kentucky Department of Education, where once approved, will be sent out for bid to the contractors.

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