| Abstract: | In an earlier paper (Yau, 2006. Application of a heat pipe heat exchanger to dehumidification enhancement in tropical HVAC systems—a baseline performance characteristics study. Int. J. Thermal Sci., accepted for publication), the baseline performance characteristics of the 8‐row wickless heat pipe heat exchanger (HPHX) were established for it being used in a vertical configuration under tropical climate conditions. The present paper covers the tests and simulation conducted on the same experimental HVAC system without the HPHX installed, thereby determining the enthalpy change for the air passing through the chilled water coil (CWC) alone (i.e. without the pre‐cooling or reheating effect of the HPHX). These experimental results, in comparison with those already obtained, would also allow an examination of how the reheat recovery with the 8‐row HPHX installed was influenced by the same key inlet parameters. The final results show that the enthalpy change with a HPHX installed for all cases examined are significantly higher than enthalpy change without a HPHX installed, demonstrating that the cooling capability of the CWC was enhanced by the HPHX. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
