The construction of the two climate rooms

The construction of the two climate rooms, in which ducted units are tested according to Eurovent requirements, or EN/ISO standards, and which are close to the reverberation rooms, have been designed using a similar acoustic isolation approach to that of the reverberation rooms. The climate rooms have been designed taking into account the specific requirements and equipment installation characteristics of air conditioners and heat pumps available in the market. Acoustic tests for several types of equipment require that the rooms have windows that allow correct installation and operation of the equipments under testing. This is the case, for instance, for window-type units, and for in-duct measurements. These are hermetically sealed acoustic windows in order to maintain the required acoustic isolation for the measurement of less noisy machines, and they have a sound attenuation superior to 45 dBA.
The test facilities allow for carrying out acoustic testing of air-to-air, air-towater, water-to- air and water-to-water products with a cooling capacity of up to 50 kW, with the exception of roof top units and liquid chiller packages with remote condenser. To test these types of units, the laboratory is equipped with two air loops of 14,000 m3/h, and two water loops of 12 m3/h, with controlled flows and temperatures conditions

Ground-coupled

Ground-coupled heat pump systems for commercial/institutional buildings have now successfully been introduced in China, even in cold climate regions. Measured seasonal average COPs range from 3.1 in cold regions to 3.3 in milder regions. Few projects have been realised yet, but plans exist for new installations in metropolitan areas and for the Olympics in 2008 in Beijing. Problems encountered in China include lengthy borehole drilling and installation processes, lack of suitable water-source heat pump products and limited availability of appropriate equipment and qualified installation personnel.
As for Europe, ground-coupled heat pumps are mainly applied as heatingonly systems. Heat source systems include bedrock, ground, sea and lake water, groundwater, combinations of these sources and ventilation air. Figure 24 shows countries with significant sales of ground-coupled heat pumps (the first number represents million of inhabitants, the second number the heat pump sales per