Energy Analysis of a Coupled Heat and Mass Transfer Phenomenon for Dew Point Air Coolers

In this work, an energy analysis of a dew point air cooler is presented by a numerical formulation of the physical phenomena related to the hybrid configuration of air cooler. The physical phenomena consist of complex and coupled heat and mass transfer process whereas, the performance is gauged based on supply air temperature, cooling capacity, cooling effectiveness and coefficient of performance. It is reported that the hybrid flow plate heat and mass exchanger can achieve a sub-wet-bulb temperature of 22.5°C for an inlet temperature of 35°C having an absolute humidity of -15g/kg. For the input conditions, the wet-bulb effectiveness of the system is ~1.2, the dew point effectiveness is 0.8, the cooling capacity is ~0.4 tons, and the coefficient of performance is 3.5. It is concluded that M-Cycle based evaporative cooling systems are possible replica of vapor-compression-refrigeration machines to meet building cooling requirement.