Novel design and modelling of an evaporative cooling system for buildings

Passive evaporative cooling has great potential as an alternative to conventional air‐conditioning in arid hot climates because of its low cost and zero pollution. This paper describes a novel evaporative cooling system with an automatic wind‐tracking device to improve its operating efficiency. The design and operating principles are discussed. A mathematical model is simplified by the assumption of convective heat and mass transfer of staggered streamlets of water. A computer program has been developed to calculate the deflection and length of spray water streamlets, as well as evaporative water mass, minimum cooled water temperature and required cooling time. A typical example illustrates that approximately 20 kg water are evaporated and around 26 min are required for 980 kg of water to be cooled from 28°C to the wet bulb temperature of 19.2°C of ambient air in a typical arid hot climate (relative humidity = 0.30, dry bulb temperature = 32°C and wind velocity = 4 m s^?1). The application of adsorbents, would allow the evaporative cooling system to be applied in hot, humid climates, in addition to hot climates with low humidity. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Desiccant solar air conditioning in tropical climates: I—Dynamic experimental and numerical studies of silicagel and activated alumina

This paper presents a dynamic study of moist air dehumidification in view of its use in an air conditioning process by evaporative cooling in tropical climates. A special device has been built to study dehumidification of tropical-like inlet air, through a fixed compact bed of silicagel and activated alumina. The compact desiccant storage is composed of two parallel beds to reduce the pressure drop. A good agreement is obtained for our experiment, and the computed amount of cycled water from the numerical model in the adiabatic process. This analytical model is used to simulate a complete air conditioning open cycle operating with hot and humid air.     

复合式太阳能空调/热水综合系统研究

将常规压缩制冷技术与太阳能热水器技术、除湿冷却技术相结合 ,提出了一个复合式太阳能空调 热水系统方案 ,并进行了可行性分析。该系统不仅可以进行冷凝热回收 ,节能效果明显 ,而且对高热、高湿地区以及气候变化有很强的适应性     

Cooling performance of roof ponds with gunny bags floating on water surface as compared with a movable insulation

A roof pond with gunny bags floating on water surface (RPWGB) has been proven to be an efficient evaporative based cooling technique in the previous studies of the authors due to the creation of thermal stratification inside the pond. In this paper, a mathematical model is developed for the investigation of its cooling performance as compared to a roof pond with a movable insulation (RPWMI) under hot dry climatic conditions. This one-dimensional model is based on the new empirical correlations of water evaporation rate from a wetted surface and a free water surface to the ambient air proposed by the authors, and takes into account the response of buildings as a whole to evaporative cooling. Results by simulations indicated that RPWGB performed slightly better than RPWMI, which is widely considered as the most efficient evaporative based roof cooling techniques, except when they are applied to a building with poorly insulated light walls and roof.     

An experimental study of a solar-regenerated liquid desiccant ventilation pre-conditioning system

A solar-regenerated liquid desiccant ventilation pre-conditioning system has been installed and experiments were carried out for a period of nine months covering rainy, cold, and hot seasons in a hot and humid climate (Thailand). A heat exchanger was used to cool the dehumidified air instead of typical evaporative cooling to maintain the dryness of the air. The use of solar energy at the regeneration process and cooling water from a cooling tower makes the system more passive. The evaporation rate at the regeneration process was always greater than the moisture removal rate at the dehumidification process indicating that the concentration of the desiccant in the system would not decrease and so the performance would not drop during continuous operation. The system could reduce the temperature of the delivered air by about 1.2 °C while the humidity ratio was reduced by 0.0042 kg_w/kg_da equivalent to 11.1% relative humidity reduction. The experimental results were also compared with models in literature.     

A solar cooling project for hot and humid climates

This paper presents a solar house built in a southern city of China where the summer is long, hot and humid. The house was designed appropriately for the climate and was constructed with local building materials where possible. A multifunctional solar system was used and a method for indoor ventilation was proposed. The design included double walls and a triple roof in order to remove heat by ventilation of the building envelope. The external walls were clad with unglazed bricks to allow evaporative cooling. The house has been monitored since completion and more than one year of data is available. Analysis of the monitored data shows that the solar techniques proposed in this design are effective in a hot and humid climate. Effective ventilation strategies for the improvement of thermal comfort are also discussed.     

Effects of evaporative inlet and aftercooling on the recuperated gas turbine cycle

Inlet air cooling and cooling of the compressor discharge using water injection boost both efficiency and power of gas turbine cycles. Four different layouts of the recuperated gas turbine cycle are presented. Those layouts include the effect of evaporative inlet and aftercooling (evaporative cooling of the compressor discharge). A parametric study of the effect of turbine inlet temperature (TIT), ambient temperature, and relative humidity on the performance of all four layouts is investigated. The results indicate that as TIT increases the optimum pressure ratio increases by 0.45 per 100 K for the regular recuperated cycle and by 1.4 per 100 K for the recuperated cycle with evaporative aftercooling. The cycles with evaporative aftercooling have distinctive pattern of performance curves and higher values of optimum pressure ratios. The results also showed that evaporative cooling of the inlet air could boost the efficiency by up to 3.2% and that evaporative aftercooling could increase the power by up to about 110% and cycle efficiency by up to 16%.     

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.     

Indirect evaporative cooling and economy cycle in summer air conditioning

The air‐side economy cycle has a large application in warm and dry climates, where the simple increase in the amount of outside air supplied to the conditioned space can substantially reduce the cooling load. Although the dry‐bulb economy cycle is the simplest implementation, requiring only a dry‐bulb temperature comparison to operate the air flow rate regulation, the greatest potential in cost reduction is achieved by the wet‐bulb economizer (WBE). Indirect evaporative cooling (IEC), based on energy recovery from the saturated exhaust airflow, is another technique to be applied in the reduction of a building cooling load. Preconditioning the outdoor airflow by IEC actually extends the applicability of the WBE. In such a way, specific synergies can be exploited when WBE and IEC are combined, even in humid climates. On the other hand, the largest benefits can be accomplished only by redefining the control strategy of the outside air flow rate. In the present paper, the outside air flow rate control strategies are described both for simple WBE and for preconditioned WBE cycles. Different regulation regions are defined on the psychrometric chart together with the relative control strategies. The incidence of these regions is evaluated for 14 different European and American climates. Finally, the seasonal cooling energy requirements are determined for the dehumidification by cooling process, which can be considered as mainly responsible for cooling energy costs in the considered localities. Traditional, preconditioned by heat recovery and IEC on the exhaust airflow, WBE and PWBE air conditioning cycles are compared. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparative exergoeconomic analyses of the integration of biomass gasification and a gas turbine power plant with and without fogging inlet cooling

Inlet cooling is effective for mitigating the decrease in gas turbine performance during hot and humid summer periods when electrical power demands peak, and steam injection, using steam raised from the turbine exhaust gases in a heat recovery steam generator, is an effective technique for utilizing the hot turbine exhaust gases. Biomass gasification can be integrated with a gas turbine cycle to provide efficient, clean power generation. In the present paper, a gas turbine cycle with fog cooling and steam injection, and integrated with biomass gasification, is proposed and analyzed with energy, exergy and exergoeconomic analyses. The thermodynamic analyses show that increasing the compressor pressure ratio and the gas turbine inlet temperature raises the energy and exergy efficiencies. On the component level, the gas turbine is determined to have the highest exergy efficiency and the combustor the lowest. The exergoeconomic analysis reveals that the proposed cycle has a lower total unit product cost than a similar plant fired by natural gas. However, the relative cost difference and exergoeconomic factor is higher for the proposed cycle than the natural gas fired plant, indicating that the proposed cycle is more costly for producing electricity despite its lower product cost and environmental impact.     

Performance enhancement of gas turbines by inlet air‐cooling in hot and humid climates

In this paper, a model to study the effect of inlet air‐cooling on gas turbines power and efficiency is developed for two different cooling techniques, direct mechanical refrigeration and an evaporative water spray cooler. Energy analysis is used to present the performance improvement in terms of power gain ratio and thermal efficiency change factors. Relationships are derived for an open gas turbine cycle with irreversible compression and expansion processes coupled to air‐cooling systems. The obtained results show that the power and efficiency improvements are functions of the ambient conditions and the gas turbine pressure ratio. The performance improvement is calculated for, ambient temperatures from 30 to 50°C, the whole range of humidity ratio (10–100%) and pressure ratio from 8 to 12. For direct mechanical refrigeration air‐cooling, the power improvement is associated with appreciable drop in the thermal efficiency. The maximum power gain can be obtained if the air temperature is reduced to its lowest limit that is the refrigerant evaporation temperature plus the evaporator design temperature difference. Water spray cooling process is sensitive to the ambient relative humidity and is suitable for dry air conditions. The power gain and efficiency enhancement are limited by the wet bulb temperature. The performance of spray evaporative cooler is presented in a dimensionless working graph. The daily performance of the cooling methods is examined for an ABB‐11D5 gas turbine operating under the hot humid conditions of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The results indicate that the direct mechanical refrigeration increased the daily power output by 6.77% versus 2.57% for the spray air‐cooling. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Experimental investigation of a solar desiccant cooling installation

Desiccant cooling is a technique based on evaporative cooling and air dehumidification using desiccant regenerated by thermal energy. It is particularly interesting when it is driven by waste or solar heat making this technique environmentally friendly.In this paper, an experimental investigation is carried on a desiccant air handling unit powered by vacuum-tube solar collectors. First, the components are studied under various operating conditions. Then overall performance of the installation is evaluated over a day for a moderately humid climate with regeneration solely by solar energy. In these conditions the overall efficiency of the solar installation is 0.55 while the thermodynamic coefficient of performance is 0.45 and the performance indicator based on the electrical consumption is 4.5. Finally, the impact of outside and regeneration conditions on the performance indicators is studied.     

Liquid desiccant based two-stage evaporative cooling system using reverse osmosis (RO) process for regeneration

This paper presents preliminary findings of the energy analysis of a cooling system with two-stage evaporative coolers using liquid desiccant dehumidifier between the stages. The proposed evaporative cooling system utilizes air humidity for cooling in humid areas and requires no additional water supply. The major energy requirement associated with this cooling system is the energy for regenerating the weak liquid desiccant. Reverse osmosis process is considered for regeneration by mechanical energy and MFI zeolite membrane is proposed for separation of water from the weak desiccant solution. Energy analysis has been carried out for the proposed cooling system. The COP of the proposed cooling system is defined as the cooling effect by the mass rate of water evaporated in the system divided by the amount of energy supplied to the system, that is, the COP is independent of the energy source.     

Introduction of a simple diagram-based method for analyzing evaporative cooling

Direct evaporative cooling can be profitable in hot arid climates, whereas favourable situations are not frequent in temperate zones. First the climate limits to direct operation are set on the psychrometric diagram. Then an alternative process is considered that can provide free cooling via evaporation for a lot of climatic conditions not particularly dry and very common in temperate climate: indirect evaporative cooling. Air is cooled in an adiabatic humidification process, and then in turn the same air is used to reduce – via a heat exchanger – the temperature of a second stream of air, whose moisture content consequently remains unchanged. The cooling effect is particularly strong when the air to be humidified is the ambient air being discharged.The potential of indirect evaporative cooling in analysed in every climatic condition, dividing the Mollier psychrometric diagram in different zones where the use of this free cooling techniques is advisable or not.     

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.     

包覆吸水膜的管式蒸发散热器性能的实验研究

应用间接蒸发散热的原理,在空调冷凝器表面包覆吸水膜,利用水蒸发带走热量.这样蒸发面积达到了最大值,并且能够通过毛细力自动补充蒸发的水分.空调冷凝器中热工质的温度和热容比间接散热器中的一次空气大,能够提高蒸发表面温度,提高蒸发量,进而提高散热效率.通过对通有热水的表面覆盖吸水纸膜的单铜管的实验研究,得出了该方式的传热系数以及水膜的导热系数,证明了该散热方式较空调冷凝器空气强制对流和其它蒸发散热方式的优势.     

大功率晶闸管的冷却技术

简要介绍了晶闸管各种冷却方式的特点、原理及其发展现状。认为浸泡式蒸发冷却具有不可比拟的优越性和很好的发展前途。由于浸泡式蒸发冷却要用完全密闭形式,导致系统内部压力在真空到0.3MPa之间波动。而大型冷却容器作为压力容器受到法律限制,因此严重影响了它的发展。鉴于此,提出了恒压浸泡式蒸发冷却系统,并对其特点及原理做了简单分析。     

包覆吸水膜的管式蒸发散热器性能的实验研究

应用间接蒸发散热的原理,在空调冷凝器表面包覆吸水膜,利用水蒸发带走热量.这样蒸发面积达到了最大值,并且能够通过毛细力自动补充蒸发的水分.空调冷凝器中热工质的温度和热容比间接散热器中的一次空气大,能够提高蒸发表面温度,提高蒸发量,进而提高散热效率.通过对通有热水的表面覆盖吸水纸膜的单铜管的实验研究,得出了该方式的传热系数以及水膜的,导热系数,证明了该散热方式较空调冷凝器空气强制对流和其它蒸发散热方式的优势.     

Heat and mass transfer analysis of a wavy fin-and-tube heat exchanger under fully and partially wet surface conditions

In this study a mathematical model of heat and mass transfer performance of a wavy fin-and-tube heat exchanger under wet surface condition is presented. The heat exchanger is a counterflow heat exchanger in which humid air and liquid are flowing in opposite direction. A water film that causes evaporative cooling of the humid air is circulated on the humid air side. The heat and mass transfer equations are first derived for fully wet heat exchanger and then by defining a wettability parameter, these equations are obtained for partially wet heat exchanger. In modeling, values of Lewis number and wettability parameter are not necessarily specified as unity. The temperature distributions of humid air, liquid and water film, and relative humidity distribution of humid air are obtained numerically. The theoretical results are found to be in good agreement with the available experimental measurements.     

蒸发冷却技术在我国非干燥地区的应用研究

介绍了蒸发冷却的原理与种类 ,通过分析计算 ,得出除湿蒸发冷却技术在我国非干燥地区存在应用的可行性。采用该技术不但可以保护环境 ,提高室内空气品质 ,在有余热废热利用的场合 ,还能大大节省系统耗电量 ,起到很好的节能效果。建议应在我国推广应用这一技术并制定相应的标准规范。