An experimental system of ground coupled heat pump GCHP was set up with two types of U-vertical ground coupled heat exchanger UGCHE, one of which was a UGCHE with sandstone backfills and the other was a UGCHE with cement backfills. Experiments were carried out on these two types of UGCHE at (different) inlet temperature and flow rate. The effect and performance of the two types of heat exchanger were analyzed. An inner heat source model and a professional computer software were adopted to conduct the numeri...