Energy-efficient indirect evaporative cooler design framework: an experimental and numerical study
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
A remarkable surge in cooling demand is observed in the last decades. Currently, the cooling market is dominated by mechanical vapor compression chillers which are energy intensive and use harmful chemical refrigerants. Therefore, the current focus of the current research in cooling is the development of unconventional, sustainable cooling systems. In this regard, indirect evaporative coolers have shown significant potential (particularly under hot-dry climates) with high energy efficiency, low cost, water-based sustainable operation, and benign emissions. However, these systems are in the development stage and have not yet been fully commercialized because of certain design challenges. An innovative indirect evaporative cooler is proposed, fabricated, and experimentally tested in this study. Particularly, the study is focused on the development of heat transfer coefficient correlation for the system for commercial-scale design and expansion. This is because the earlier available correlation is based on simple airflow between parallel plates assumption and does not incorporate the effect of the evaporative potential of the system resulting in under/over-estimation of the heat transfer characteristics. The results showed that the proposed system achieved a temperature drop of 20 °C, a cooling capacity of around 180 W, and an overall heat transfer coefficient of up to 30 W/m2K. Moreover, the study presents an experiment-regression-based heat transfer coefficient correlation that satisfactorily captures the effect of outdoor air temperature and airflow rate ratio which are critical in the design of evaporative coolers. The proposed correlation showed a high (±5%) with experimental data thus making it suitable for the future design of IEC systems over assorted operating scenarios.
Date Issued
2023-09-15
Date Acceptance
2023-07-04
Citation
Energy Conversion and Management, 2023, 292
ISSN
0196-8904
Publisher
Elsevier
Journal / Book Title
Energy Conversion and Management
Volume
292
Copyright Statement
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
License URL
Identifier
https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:001046447600001&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=a2bf6146997ec60c407a63945d4e92bb
Subjects
AIR-CONDITIONING SYSTEM
CONSUMPTION
COOLING SYSTEM
COUNTER-FLOW
Energy & Fuels
Experiments
Heat transfer coefficient correlation
HEAT-TRANSFER ENHANCEMENT
INTEGRATED-SYSTEM
MASS EXCHANGER
M-CYCLE
Mechanics
Novel indirect evaporative cooler
PERFORMANCE
Physical Sciences
Science & Technology
SUMMER
Sustainable cooling
Technology
Thermodynamics
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
117377
Date Publish Online
2023-07-12