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