Thermal performance of an evaporatively cooled building: Parametric studies

A single-storey office building in a hot and dry climate is modelled for evaporative cooling. The counterflow cooling tower is modified to precool the tower inlet air by the tower exit air in a heat exchanger. Centralized evaporative air cooling, using the modified cooling tower, and roof evaporative cooling are considered to provide comfortable living conditions in the space. The thermal performance of such a building is analysed for various operating parameters. The study indicates that centralized evaporative air cooling is feasible, to maintain near-perfect comfort conditions in hot and dry climates. Modified cooling tower and roof evaporative cooling further enhance the scope of evaporative cooling for comfort applications.     

Energy performance evaluation of an evaporative wind tower

The aim of this paper is to optimize the energy performance of cylindrical cross section evaporative wind towers as passive systems for thermal conditioning of urban spaces. Two theoretical models, a thermal model and a fluid model, have been developed to characterize the evaporative system and the tower design respectively. The thermal model evaluates the tower operation when the fan and the nozzles are working, giving as result the difference between the outlet temperature and inlet temperature. This model has been used to analyze the thermal response of the system to fluctuations in design parameters (water flow, air flow and absorption coefficient of the plastic). To that effect, three one-parametric and one multi-parametric optimization have been done. The fluid model describes the tower operation when the fan and the nozzles are not working, giving as result the wind behavior through the tower. Additional configurations of the wind tower have been evaluated: changing the number of the wind catcher openings, varying the height of the internal walls of the tower and modifying the geometry of the lower ventilation apertures.     

Performance analysis and improvement of the use of wind tower in hot dry climate

Wind towers for passive evaporative cooling offer real opportunity for improving the ambient comfort conditions in building whilst reducing the energy consumption of air-conditioning systems.This study aims at assessing the thermal performance of a bioclimatic housing using wind towers realized in a hot dry region of Algeria. Performance monitoring and site measurement of the system provide data which assist model validation. The analysis and site measurement are encouraging, and they confirm the advantage of the application of this passive cooling strategies in hot dry climate.A mathematical model is developed using heat and mass transfer balances. For a more effective evaporative cooling, a number of improvements on wind tower configurations are proposed.     

Cooling potential of an evaporative cooling tower: Parametric studies

Dependence of the cooling potential of an evaporative cooling tower on the tower parameters (height h, cross-sectional area A_t, evaporative pad area A_p, packing factor of evaporating pads F_p and flow resistance f) has been investigated. The performance of the tower is studied for two different climates, namely hot-dry and composite, typified by Jodhpur and Delhi.     

Recent research on an indirect evaporative cooler (IEC) Part 2: thermal performance of a non-conditioned building coupled with an IEC

The thermal performance of a non-conditioned building fitted with an indirect evaporative cooler (IEC) has been investigated in terms of hourly, monthly and seasonal discomfort index. The effect of various design parameters of the IEC on the discomfort index has been investigated for three different climatic areas of India, i.e. hot–dry, warm, humid and composite. The analysis has shown that the IEC is effective for creating thermal comfort conditions in buildings in dry–hot and composite climates. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evaluation of discomfort in a room with desert cooler

The thermal performance of a room fitted with an evaporative cooler (desert cooler) has been analysed in terms of a ‘discomfort index’ for three different climates, namely hot dry, hot humid and composite typified by the Jodhpur, Madras and Delhi climates. The effects of different cooler parameters on the discomfort index of the room have been investigated to obtain the optimum values for each climate.     

Recent researches in indirect evaporative cooler III: optimization of the cooling potential of a room–coupled indirect evaporative cooler

A mathematical model based on heat transfer principles, for characterizing the cooling performance of a room coupled indirect evaporative cooler (tube type) has been developed. Two dimensionless parameters, i.e. environment factor, ϕ and cooling factor, CF have been defined to characterize the performance of IEC coupled with a room. The optimum values of these parameters have been obtained for different environmental and thermal load conditions. In addition to this, a linear relationship has been obtained for the optimum size of a cooler to remove maximum heat from a room of given size. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numerical simulation of cooling performance of wind tower (Baud-Geer) in hot and arid region

In the present study, an attempt is made to study the cooling performance of a wind tower in a hot and dry region, Yazd, in Iran. For the relevant experiments and numerical studies, at first, the temperature and wind velocity inside and outside of the wind tower measured. Based on four-day measurements during last summer, a computer program was designed with language C⁺⁺ to solve the equations. Also in the study the effects of parameters including wind tower height, variety of the materials used in the wind tower walls, the amount of vaporized water, the temperature of input and output air, the wind velocity and the relative humidity were investigated.Furthermore, to develop, a natural flow of air, for days without blowing a wind the role of solar chimney was considered.Finally, to evaluate the method of integral view and take information about streamlines of airflow in wind tower (Baud-Geer), velocity, pressure, humidity, temperature and density profile of fluid, Fluent software is applied to analyze the air flow in the wind tower in differential view for three-dimensional and steady state conditions with water spraying at the top of wind tower.The results indicate that the evaporative cooling is very effective in a hot and dry region. The temperature decreases considerably, if the wind towers are equipped with the water vaporization system. This causes the air becomes heavier and a natural motion of air through downside of wind tower to be produced.     

Viability of wind towers in achieving summer comfort in the hot arid regions of the middle east

Operation of conventional wind towers, or Baud-Geers, are described. Wind towers maintain natural ventilation through buildings due to wind or buoyancy effects. The tower structure is cooled externally through radiative transfer with the sky, and internally with the cool ambient air, circulated through the building and the tower during the night. During the day, the warm ambient air is partially cooled by the tower structure before entering the building. When passed over moist surfaces, air is cooled evaporatively. However, sensible and evaporative cooling potentials of conventional wind towers, which depend on the tower design, are limited. Another disadvantage of the conventional wind towers is the admittance of dust into the building.Two modern designs of wind towers are considered which eliminate the above disadvantages. One design incorporates one-way dampers in the tower head and a wetted column in the tower. This design, which is particularly suitable in areas with good winds, evaporatively cools the hot-dry ambient air before admitting it into the building. The other design incorporates evaporative cooling pads at the tower entrance. This design is particularly suitable in areas with very little or no winds.This latter design may be incorporated into the existing minarets of the mosques and shrines, church towers, or other existing tall towers, to supply evaporatively-cooled air into the space.Conventional and the modern versions of wind towers can be incorporated aesthetically into the designs of modern buildings in the hot-arid regions of the Middle East, and other areas of the world with similar climate, to provide summer thermal comfort with little or no use of electricity.     

Evaporative cooling of water in a mechanical draft cooling tower

A new mathematical model of a mechanical draft cooling tower performance has been developed. The model represents a boundary-value problem for a system of ordinary differential equations, describing a change in the droplets velocity, its radii and temperature, and also a change in the temperature and density of the water vapor in a mist air in a cooling tower. The model describes available experimental data with an accuracy of about 3%. For the first time, our mathematical model takes into account the radii distribution function of water droplets.Simulation based on our model allows one to calculate contributions of various physical parameters on the processes of heat and mass transfer between water droplets and damp air, to take into account the cooling tower design parameters and the influence of atmospheric conditions on the thermal efficiency of the tower. The explanation of the influence of atmospheric pressure on the cooling tower performance has been obtained for the first time.It was shown that the average cube of the droplet radius practically determines thermal efficiency. The relative accuracy of well-defined monodisperse approximation is about several percent of heat efficiency of the cooling tower. A mathematical model of a control system of the mechanical draft cooling tower is suggested and numerically investigated. This control system permits one to optimize the performance of the mechanical draft cooling tower under changing atmospheric conditions.     

Experimental Evaluation of One,Two, and Three Stage Evaporative Cooling Systems

The thermal performance of four different arrangements of evaporative air coolers have been evaluated experimentally during the hot summer of Kuwait. The systems include one-stage direct evaporative cooling (DEC), one-stage indirect evaporative cooler (IEC) linked to an external cooling tower, two-stage indirect/direct evaporative coolers (IEC/DEC), and three-stage system of evaporative cooling and mechanical vapor compression (IEC/DEC-MVC). Two variables are used to evaluate the system thermal performance, the thermal effectiveness and the energy efficiency ratio (EER). The data show that the IEC/DEC has the highest EER, followed by the DEC, IEC/DEC-MVC, and IEC. The DEC has the lowest effectiveness, succeeded by the DEC/IEC, IEC, and IEC/DEC-MVC. Coupling MVC with IEC/DEC extends the cooling range and can cool the ambient air dry bulb temperature over a range of 40°C to 15°C at any value of ambient air wet bulb temperature. Two experimental correlations have been developed for each one of the tested systems. The first one relates the effectiveness to water to air mass flow ratio (L/G) or Reynolds number (Re), while the second correlation relates the EER with effectiveness and L/G and/or Re. These relationships are very important in designing and optimizing the studied evaporative cooling units.     

Theoretical model to estimate the thermal performance of an evaporative wind tower placed in an open space

A theoretical model to evaluate the thermal performance of an evaporative wind tower installed in open spaces with hot and dry climates has been developed. It was based on the laws of conservation of mass and energy and used TRNSYS as a simulation tool. Evaporative wind towers produce an adiabatic cooling which has been modelled taking into account all the heat and mass exchanges between the airflow and the injected water, and also considering the processes of radiation, convection and conduction. The system analyzed has a special design based on an existing installation placed in Madrid, which is composed of sixteen evaporative wind towers with one fan and six nozzles on the top of each one. A first validation of this theoretical model was done by comparing calculated results obtained through numerical simulation with experimental data. These last data were previously registered in a campaign carried out during the summer 2008 to evaluate the thermal behaviour of the system. To contrast both results, the same initial assumptions in fan and water operation as well as environmental conditions were considered. The comparison between them during the period of 18th to 20th July 2008, show an average temperature drop of 6.5 °C and an average increase of relative humidity of 27%. These values present a high correlation, up to 0.79, between experimental and calculated wet bulb depression. The average cooling power achieved by this system varies from 13 to 16 kW, with maximum peaks around 20 kW. So this theoretical model could be used for future energy estimations of wind towers design with similar constructive characteristics.     

Thermal efficiency of evaporative heat loss for open and closed cycle systems

The authors present an analytical expression for the thermal efficiency of evaporative heat loss for open and closed cycle systems in terms of system design and climatic parameters. The derived analytical expression can be used for optimum design of evaporative cooling (open cycle) and distillation system (closed cycle). The theoretical results have also been validated experimentally for open cycle system.     

Recent researches in indirect evaporative cooler V: relative thermal performance of buildings coupled to direct and indirect evaporative cooler

A mathematical model has been developed to evaluate the relative thermal performance of a building coupled with an indirect or direct evaporative cooler. Using periodic analysis for taking into account thermal storage of building envelope, explicit expressions have been obtained for room air temperature and room air humidity. For comparing their performance under different climatic conditions, numerical calculations have been made taking meteorological parameters for a typical day for Delhi (composite climate), Jodhpur (hot-dry climate) and Madras (hot-humid climate). It is found that the indirect evaporative cooler is a more effective and energy efficient system than the air-conditioner; it can hence be commercially used for computer and electronic exchange applications as well as for human comfort in a variety of climatic conditions, whereas direct evaporative cooler has limited use (only in hot-dry and composite climates). © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optimization of water-cooled chiller system with load-based speed control

This study investigates the energy performance of chiller and cooling tower systems integrated with variable condenser water flow and optimal speed control for tower fans and condenser water pumps. Thermodynamic-behaviour chiller and cooling tower models were developed to assess how different control methods of cooling towers and condenser water pumps influence the trade-off between the chiller power, pump power, fan power and water consumption under various operating conditions. Load-based speed control is introduced for the tower fans and condenser water pumps to achieve optimum system performance. With regard to an example chiller system serving an office building, the optimal control coupled with variable condenser water flow could reduce the annual system electricity use by 5.3% and operating cost by 4.9% relative to the equivalent system using constant speed fans and pumps with a fixed set point for cooling water temperature control.     

Effects of acoustic barriers and crosswind on the operating performance of evaporative cooling tower groups

Most evaporative cooling towers are arranged on building roof due to the limitation of space and noise, and acoustic barriers are always installed around cooling towers in practical applications. The existence of acoustic barriers and crosswind may affect the recirculation phenomenon which is directly related to the operating performance of cooling towers. In this study, a physical and mathematical computation model is proposed to research the crosswind and distance between acoustic barriers and inlet of cooling towers. Both sensible and latent heat are considered in this research. The reflux flow rate and performance ratio are obtained to evaluate the recirculation and operating performance, respectively. The results show that the higher the crosswind velocity, the larger the reflux flow rate, and the lower the performance ratio of cooling tower groups. For high crosswind velocity, the presence of acoustic barriers is useful to inhibit reflux and improve operating performance, especially for ICE cooling tower groups. In addition, the optimum values are recommended for LiBr/ICE cooling tower groups in the research cases The variation of reflux flow rate and performance ratio with the acoustic barriers’ distance presents a parabolic tendency.     

Thermal analysis on the cooling performance of a porous evaporative plate for building

In this paper, a wet porous cooling plate has been used for a building wall. Cooling can be achieved due to the evaporation in the porous layer. A mathematical model on the heat and mass transfer in the unsaturated porous media is developed to analyze the influences of ambient conditions and the porous layer thickness on the cooling performance of the porous evaporative plate. With a decrease in ambient relative humidity and an increase in ambient temperature, more cooling of the porous evaporative plate can be supplied for the inside of the room. The heat exchange between the inside surface of the porous plate and the air in the room should be intensified to achieve a higher cooling efficiency of the porous plate. The ambient wind speed and the thickness of the porous plate also have significant influence on the average temperature of the porous plate. All these results should be taken into account for the utilization of the porous evaporative cooling plate. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/htj.20284     

Evaporative cooling of water in a natural draft cooling tower

A mathematical model of the performance of a cooling tower is presented. The model consists of two interdependent boundary-value problems, a total of 9 ODE, and the algorithm of self-consistent solution. The first boundary-value problem describes evaporative cooling of water drops in the spray zone of a cooling tower; the second boundary-value problem describes film cooling in the pack. Simulation of the boundary-value problems has been made. The comparison between experimental data and calculated results showed that the model correctly describes the basic regularities of the cooling tower performance. In the effective droplet-radius approximation the difference in the thermal efficiency between calculated and experimental results does not exceed 3%. The limits of applicability of the developed mathematical model and its possibilities are discussed.     

Experimental investigation of new designs of wind towers

Two new designs of wind towers were tested side by side with a conventional wind tower in the city of Yazd, Iran. All the towers were of identical dimensions. The two new designs were one with wetted column, consisting of wetted curtains hung in the tower column, and the other one with wetted surfaces, consisting of wetted evaporative cooling pads mounted at its entrance. The air temperature leaving the wind towers with evaporative cooling provisions were much lower than the air temperature leaving the conventional design, and its relative humidity much higher. The air-flow rate was reduced slightly in these new towers. It was found that the wind tower with wetted column performs better with high wind speeds whereas the tower with wetted surfaces performs better with low wind speeds. It is recommended that these new designs of wind towers should be manufactured in different sizes and incorporated in the designs of new buildings. They can replace the evaporative coolers currently employed in Iran, and other hot arid regions, with considerable saving in electrical energy consumption.     

Evaluation of pressure coefficients and estimation of air flow rates in buildings employing wind towers

Wind pressure coefficients at various openings of a wind tower were determined by testing a scale model of the building in a boundary layer wind tunnel. Wind towers (or Baud-Geers) are structures which have been employed in Iran and neighbouring countries for natural ventilation and passive cooling. Tests were conducted on an isolated tower, the tower and adjoining house, and the tower and house surrounded by a courtyard. The wind pressure coefficients at the tower and house openings were determined at various wind angles for two types of terrain: suburban and open country. The air flow rates were then estimated from a knowledge of the wind pressure coefficients at the building apertures. It was concluded that the presence of a courtyard around the structure and the angle of incidence of the wind influence the rate and the direction of air flowing from the tower to the house. If leeward openings of the tower can be closed (for example, by automatic dampers) restricting the air leaving these apertures, the air flow rate from the tower to the house can be greatly increased. The results of this investigation are believed to provide assistance to architects and engineers in the design of wind towers for desired ventilation rates in buildings.