6th International Energy Conversion Engineering Conference (IECEC) 28 - 30 July 2008, Cleveland, Ohio

AIAA 2008-5690

Modeling, Evaluation and Application Potential of Two Stage Indirect/Direct Evaporative Air Coolers
Ghassem Heidarinejad1 and Mojtaba Bozorgmehr2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, P.O. Box 14115-143, Tehran, Iran

Two-stage indirect/direct evaporative air cooler can provide summer comfort conditions as an environmentally clean, fresh supply air and energy efficient cooling system for some regions with wide variety climatic conditions. In this paper, a general mathematical heat and mass transfer model for evaporative devices, which take into account surface wetting factor and non-unity Lewis factor is developed and presented. This model then has been adapted for indirect and direct evaporative air coolers. Cross flow configuration in which dry and wet air streams travel perpendicularly to one another is the most straightforward way to prevent mixing air streams in an indirect evaporative air cooler. An iterative numerical solution used to predict cooling performance of the cross flow indirect cooler; while for the direct cooler, solution reduces to a simple analytical one. Factors affecting on cooling performance of this system consists of operational and geometrical parameters and climatic conditions. Results show that the operational parameters which mainly control the cooling performance of the indirect stage are number of transfer units in both dry and wet airstreams in addition to air stream mass flow ratio and that of the direct stage is only number of transfer units. Whereas poor wetting degrades cooling efficiency, water flow rate should be enough low to keep the surface wet. A climatic condition zone has been specified in which this cooling system provides comfort condition and so fills the gap between direct evaporative cooling system and conventional vapor compression cooling system extending the application of the evaporative cooling in multi climatic conditions such as Iran.

Nomenclature
A cp Cf Cw h hfg i Km La,Lf,Lw Le Lef m NTU R Rva Rwa S t U
1 2

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

area [m2] specific heat at constant pressure [kJkg-1 C -1] fluid to air heat capacity rate ratio (=mfcpf/macpa), [-] water to air capacity rate ratio (=mwcw/macpa), [-] convective heat transfer coefficient [kWm-2C -1] evaporation heat of water at reference temperature [kJkg-1] specific enthalpy [kJkg-1] convective mass transfer coefficient [kgm-2s-1] flow lengths in the directions of secondary air, primary air and spray water, respectively [m] Lewis number (= /D), [-] Lewis factor (=h/Kmcpa) mass flow rate [kgs-1] number of heat transfer units (=hAa /macpa) a ratio of sensible heat transfer capacitances (=UAf /hAa), [-] water vapor to dry air specific heat capacity ratio (=cpv /cpa) water to dry air specific heat capacity ratio (=cpw /cpa) spacing between plates [m] temperature [C] overall heat transfer coefficient between primary air and water film [kWm-2 C-1]

Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Email: gheidari@modares.ac.ir, AIAA Member. PhD Student, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Email: bozorgm@modares.ac.ir. 1 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
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Copyright 2008 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.

w xa,xf,xw

= = = = =

Humidity ratio of moist air [kg(water) kg(air)-1] coordinates of secondary air, primary air and spray water from inlets, respectively [m] thermal diffusivity coefficient [m2s-1] cooling effectiveness % surface wettability factor secondary air saturated air at water temperature primary air inlet outlet vapor water

Subscripts a = asw = f = in = out = v = w =

I. Introduction
vaporative air conditioning is an environmentally friendly and energy efficient method for cooling buildings and is being used increasingly in residential and commercial applications worldwide. This method of cooling can provide comfort conditions in the areas with dry and hot climate and supplies superior indoor air quality in comparison with vapor compression systems since fresh outdoor air is supplied. Two main different methods are used, the direct and the indirect one. In the direct method, air passes through a wetted media in an adiabatic saturation process. In the indirect method, a wet surface heat exchanger is used in which a non-adiabatic evaporation takes place. Parallel plate indirect evaporative heat exchangers have alternating wet and dry airflow passages, which are separated from each other. Primary air, which flows in dry passages, is cooled sensibly without adding water, while the secondary air flowing in wet passages carries away the heat energy from the primary air. The surface of wet passages is wetted by spray water, so that water film evaporates into the secondary air and decreases the temperature of the wall. Therefore, heat is transferred from primary to secondary air without introducing moisture into the primary air stream. The air leaving the dry side of the cooler has a lower wet-bulb temperature than the ambient. As shown in Fig. 1 depending on the condition of secondary air, there are four possible cycles of indirect stage. Figure 1(a) shows an indirect cooler in which evaporation of water occurs out of heat exchanger and then cold saturated air removes heat from supply air in an air-to-air heat exchanger. In Fig. 1(b) a wet surface heat exchanger is used. As the air at the outlet of the indirect stage dry side has a lower temperature than the ambient, consequently it would be advantageous to extract a fraction of this cooled air and pass it through the wet side of the heat exchanger instead of using ambient air. This type of cooler is referred to as a regenerative indirect evaporative cooler and is shown in Fig. 1(c). If regenerative evaporative cooler units were placed in series, the cooled air leaving the last unit would approach the ambient dew point temperature, but each additional stage would lower the dry side air mass flow rate resulting lower cooling capacity. Recently some novel designs have been developed and studied which approach dew point temperature. Secondary air could be supplied from outdoor or room exhaust or a mixing of both. If room exhaust is used for secondary air, it is so-called recovery and is shown in Fig. 1(d). There are some restrictions on both direct and indirect methods, which limit their applications if each one is used alone. Direct evaporative cooling has the disadvantage that if the ambient wet-bulb temperature is higher than 21C, the cooling effect is not sufficient for indoor comfort cooling applications. In addition, as mentioned above in an indirect evaporative cooler, a heat exchanger is used and it has been suggested that only 50-60% of the incoming secondary air wet bulb temperature can be achieved. It means that the cooling effectiveness of the indirect systems is not high enough to be used alone for air conditioning purposes. One way to overcome these restrictions in order to increase the cooling capacity is combining indirect and direct evaporative stages. If a first indirect stage is added to a second direct stage, a two stage indirect/direct cooler is obtained which further cools the air. A two stage air-conditioner combining indirect and direct processes is gaining popularity in places where the higher wet-bulb temperatures (i.e., higher ambient humidity) does not permit sufficiently low indoor temperatures from a simple direct air-conditioner. In this system, the outside air is precooled in an indirect stage and then further cooled in a subsequent direct stage. The first stage cools the air without adding moisture and in the second stage moisture is added. The result is that the final air temperature leaving the airconditioner is lower than what could be achieved with a direct air-conditioner only in a lower level of moisture content. This expands the application of evaporative air-conditioning considerably to areas with slightly higher wetbulb temperatures. 2 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
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Primary air

Air to air heat exchanger

Conditioned space

Primary air Indirect heat exchanger

Conditioned space

Secondary air

Direct saturator

Secondary air

a) Separated saturator and heat exchanger

b) Conventional indirect evaporative cooler

Primary air

Indirect heat exchanger

Conditioned space

Primary air

Indirect heat exchanger

Conditioned space

Extracted air from indirect stage c) Regeneration cycle indirect evaporative cooler

Return air d) Recovery cycle indirect evaporative cooler

Figure 1. Indirect evaporative cooler in different cycles. Two-stage systems are capable of providing cooling that is equivalent to, or even superior to mechanical air conditioners. A two stage indirect/direct evaporative cooler is shown schematically in Fig.2. This paper deals with the modeling of such a cooler. In comparison with indirect and direct evaporative cooling, there is not much enough reported work on two stage evaporative cooling. El-Dessouky et al.1 constructed an experimental rig of two-stage evaporative cooling unit and tested in the Kuwait environment. The system was formed of an indirect evaporative cooling unit (IEC) followed by a direct evaporative cooling unit (DEC). During the summer season of Kuwait with dry bulb temperatures higher than 45C the system was operated. The system was operated as a function of the packing thickness and water flow rate of the DEC unit. Other parameters include the water flow rate to the IEC unit and the mode for operating the IEC heat exchangers. Results showed that the effectiveness of the IEC/DEC varies over a range of 90120%. Similarly, the effectiveness of the IEC unit was varied over a range of 2040%. The effectiveness of the DEC unit was over a range of 6393%. Scofield and DesChamps2 studied characteristics of direct and indirect evaporative cooling units, which utilize plate type air-to-air heat exchanger. The first stage of the system contains an indirect evaporative cooling unit, which includes a plate type heat exchanger. In this unit, ambient air, with low wet bulb temperature is sprayed with water before it flows in the plate heat exchanger against indoor air (primary air). This results in reduction of the primary air temperature. Further conditioning of the primary air is achieved in a conventional cooling tower. Operation of this system shows monthly savings of 30% in the energy cost over conventional refrigeration systems. Al-Juwayhel et al.3 studied the performance of an indirect/direct evaporative cooling system and the effect of coupling the system with a cooling tower. Results show that the highest thermal efficiency is obtained for the combined system, which is followed by a two-stage indirect/direct evaporative cooling unit. The lowest thermal efficiency is reported for the direct evaporative cooling system. In the combined system, the cooling tower removes the thermal load added to the system during air precooling and as a result, higher thermal efficiency is achieved. Review of literature shows that two stage evaporative cooling systems are being paid more attention recently in most of the regions for residential and commercial applications.

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Figure 2. Two stage indirect/direct evaporative cooler. As an early work on modeling of indirect cooling, Maclaine-Cross and Banks4 analyzed the evaporative heat transfer in an indirect cooler. They suggested a simplified analysis model assuming that water film is stationary and continuously replenished with water at the same temperature and saturation line is a linear function of temperature. The resulting decoupled equations describing the wet and the dry passages of the cooler were solved by defining a new independent variable: wet bulb depression, which is the difference between dry bulb and wet bulb temperatures. This model then could be used to predict the cooler performance by analogy to dry surface heat exchangers. Hsu et al.5 investigated three basic types of wet surface heat exchangers. They found that cooling effectiveness of each configuration increases with increasing dry channel NTU (Number of Transfer Units) and reaches maximum values asymptotically at some large values of NTU. They assumed that the non-circulating water is locally replenished and its local temperature was calculated from the mass and energy balance equations. They took into account the effect of longitudinal plate conduction. Their results showed that it has almost no effect on the cocurrent and counter-current configurations and its degrading effect on efficiency of cross flow is accelerated when the ratio of dry passage length to that of the wet passage is large. Pescod6 proposed a simple design method for indirect evaporative cooler using parallel plastic plates with small protrusions. Although the thermal conductivity of plastic is very low, the heat transfer resistance across a thin plastic plate would be less than of the thermal resistance between the air and plate in dry side. Predictions of the efficiencies of Pescods wet surface plate heat exchanger were found to be higher than the experimental data. Thus, incomplete wetting of plate surfaces was suspected. Kettleborough and Hsieh7 described a counter flow indirect evaporative cooler with configuration of upward flow of the primary air and downward flows of secondary air and water. Numerical analysis was utilized to study the thermal performance of the unit. By applying wetting factor better agreement between calculated and measured performance data qualitatively was achieved. Erens and Dreyer8 purposed three different models describing evaporative indirect cooler: (1) Poppe modelconsidering a variable Lewis factor, spray water evaporation rate and modeling over saturation in the secondary air; (2) Merkel model- can be derived from Poppe model by assuming a Lewis factor of unity and negligible effect of spray water evaporation and assuming that the secondary air never becomes over saturated; (3) Simplified modelassuming that the water temperature is constant through out the cooler. They concluded that simplified model is suitable for small units and for initial design purpose. Chengqin and Hongxing9 developed an analytical model for the indirect evaporative cooling with parallel and counter flow configurations. Similar to any other analytical model, humidity ratio of air in equilibrium with water surface assumed as a linear function of the surface temperature. Effects of spray water evaporation, spray water temperature variation along the heat exchanger, non-unity surface wettability and Lewis factor were considered in the model. Results of analytical solutions found to be in good agreement with those of numerical integrations. The principles underlying all of the indirect evaporative cooling devices such as indirect evaporative air and fluid cooler and closed-wet cooling tower is the same. So the resulting set of the equations for the mathematical modeling could be obtained in a general form10,11. The differences are due to geometrical and flow configuration, heat, and mass transfer coefficients. For an indirect evaporative air cooler, cross flow configuration is best suited with parallel plate wet surface heat exchanger. Review of the previous researches show that simplified models 4 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
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consider either constant water temperature or neglect effect of water evaporation rate. In this paper using a real curve fitted saturation line, variation of water temperature and its evaporation rate, non-unity Lewis factor and surface wetting factor are taken into account to model a cross flow evaporative indirect air cooler.

II. Modeling
A. Physical description of cross flow indirect cooler Various designs for the indirect evaporative cooler have been developed12. Indirect heat exchangers must be designed such that the dry and wet airstreams do not mix. The most straightforward way to prevent mixing is to use a cross flow pattern, in which the dry and wet airstreams travel perpendicularly to one another; and all four heat exchanger edges are available as airflow inlets and outlets. Conventionally, in cross flow designs, wet passage airflow considered vertical and dry passage airflow is horizontal. Counter flow heat exchangers are typically more effective than those of cross flow design. This is because the average temperature difference between the two airstreams, which is directly proportional to the heat transfer rate, is greater for counter flow than it is for cross flow. But as presented by Heidarinejad and Bozorgmehr13, because of simultaneous interaction of latent and sensible heat transfer, good enough efficiencies could be obtained with cross configuration in comparison with that of counter flow configuration. A typical design consists of a series of parallel plates in which one is open for primary airflow and the other one is open for water and secondary airflows. Circulation water sprayed onto the top of the heat exchanger and flows downward along wall surfaces of wet channels. Primary air flows in the alternative channels. As can be seen from Fig. 3 each repeated section of the cooler consists of a half of dry channel, plate wall and a half of wet channel. Whereas in the cross flow configuration, primary air and secondary air flow in perpendicular direction, the heat exchanger is divided into a series of two-dimensional elements, each of the surface area dA as shown in Fig. 3. The following assumptions here are considered: -There is no diffusion in the flow direction; -Unit is insulated from the surrounding; -Heat and mass transfer coefficients are constant; -Lewis factor is not unity; -Spray water is circulated; -Plate wall, bulk water and air/water interface have the same temperature.

Water in Water Secondary air Primary Air Plate wall

Secondary air in

mw ,tw

m a ,t a ,i a ,w a

Primary air in

Primary air out dA

m f ,t f

m f ,t f + dt f

1/2Sf

1/2Sa

Water out

mw + dmw ,tw + dtw

a) Model section and its adjacent section

Secondary air out m a ,t a + dt a ,i a + di a ,w a + dw a

b) Differential element

Figure 3. Model section and differential element. B. Governing equations of heat and mass transfer Heat and mass transfer occur simultaneously in an indirect evaporative heat exchanger. For a differential element as shown in Fig. 3, by applying principles of mass and energy conservation, a set of differential equations obtained as follows. 5 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
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Energy balance Energy balance equation for the secondary air:

ma dia =[hc (t w -ta )+iv K m (wasw -wa ) ]Aa dxa

Energy balance equation for the primary air:

(1)

m f c pf dt f =U(tw -t f )A f dx f

(2)

With the assumption of varying water flow rate, energy balance equation for the streams flowing inside the element shown in Fig. 3 is as follows:

mw cw dtw +cw tw dmw +m f c pf dt f +m adi a =0

Mass balance The mass balance for the element gives the rate of spray water evaporation.

(3)

ma dwa =K m (wasw -wa ) Aa dxa

(4)

In above equations dxa = dxa / La , dx w =dx w /Lw , and dx f =dx f /Lf represent differential dimensionless coordinates with respect to the flow lengths. Equations (1)-(4) govern heat and mass transfer in an indirect evaporative cooler. Some manipulation to the above equations results the following set of coupled ordinary equations:

dta =[

1 ](1+Rva (wasw -wa ))(tw -ta )NTUdxa (1+wa Rva ) Le

(5)

dwa =(wasw -wa )

Le

NTUdxa

(6)

dt f =(tw -t f ) dtw =NTU.[

R NTU dx f Cf

(7)

R 1 1 (t f -tw )dx f (tw -t a )dx a -[hfg /c pa +tw (Rva -Rwa )] (w asw -w a )dx a ] Cw Cw Cw Le

(8)

Equations (5)-(8) form a set of coupled ordinary differential equations, which can be solved simultaneously, using a multi step numerical integration procedure. Water circulation condition Spray water temperature varies inside the heat exchanger. Because of water circulation, the inlet spray-water temperature tw in will equal the outlet spray-water temperature tw out .

tw in = tw out
Equation (9) sets the condition for inlet and outlet water temperature due to the circulation of water.

(9)

C. Procedure of integration The integration procedure starts from the element in which both inlet conditions of primary and secondary air streams are known and proceeds throughout the cooler. In practice, water is normally circulated, so ignoring heat 6 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
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loss in the water circuit, inlet, and averaged outlet water temperature are the same, and this temperature has to be found iteratively. For down flow case which secondary air and water both flow downwards, integration starts from the top of the cooler where the inlet air conditions are known with an assumed water temperature. The integration proceeds downwards to the bottom of the cooler. The averaged water temperature at the bottom is compared to the assumed inlet water temperature and is corrected to obtain equal inlet and outlet temperatures. In the case of up flow, because secondary air enters from the bottom, integration starts from the bottom with an assumed outlet water temperature and proceeds upwards. This procedure leads to a water temperature distribution at the top, which is not constant. The difference between inlet and outlet water temperature in each vertical column of elements is used to update assumed outlet water temperature. The solution is iterated until constant water temperature at the top and equal water temperature at the inlet and outlet is achieved. D. Physical description of direct cooler In a direct evaporative cooler, the heat and mass transferred between air and water decreases the air dry bulb temperature (DBT) and increases its humidity, while the enthalpy would be essentially constant in an ideal process. The minimum temperature that can be reached is the wet bulb temperature (WBT) of the incoming air. Wet porous materials or pads provide a large water surface in which the air is moistened and the pad is wetted by dripping water. Cooling water is sprayed or simply poured from the top to effect falling film at the surface of cellulose papers of pad. Cellulose paper is a good packing for pads because it is porous and durable for repeated wetting and drying, and has a very large pore surface for a given packing volume in comparison to commercial fibers. The main merits of this type of pad are: (1) large pressure loss can be avoided and good effect of evaporation can be ensured, since the process air flows in a straight channel; (2) the evaporative cooler is compact in size and less in weight due to its high surface density. Considering the humid airflow close to a wet surface, according to Fig. 4, the heat transfer will occur if the surface temperature tw is different from the draft air temperature t a . If the absolute humidity (concentration) of the air close to the surface w asw is different from the humidity of the draft w a , mass transfer will also occur. It is assumed that the makeup water entering the sump to replace evaporated water is at the same adiabatic saturation temperature of the incoming air. For a differential element as shown in Fig. 4, by applying principles of mass and energy conservation, a set of differential equations can be obtained as follows

Figure 4. An element of direct evaporative cooler. Energy balance Energy balance equation for the air

m a di a =[hc (tw -t a )+iv K m (w asw -w a ) ]dA

(10)

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Mass balance Mass balance equation for the air is the same as equation (4). In a direct evaporative cooler, water is added in small quantities and attains the wet bulb temperature of the incoming air condition and its temperature is essentially constant within the device. For such a case, taking into account that the water flow direction is irrelevant, and with an additional assumption that Le =1, based on a general mathematical model developed by Halasz10 the governing equations of mass and energy could be obtained as follows.

d(t a -tW B )=-

hc (t a -tWB )dA m ac p a hc (w a -w W B )dA m a c pa

(11)

d(w a -w WB )=-

(12)

These equations can be integrated over the whole surface to yield:

t a,o -tWB t a,i -tW B

=exp(-

hc A ) m ac pa hc A ) m ac pa

(13)

w a,o -w W B w a,i -w WB

=exp(-

(14)

Therefore, the effectiveness of a direct evaporative cooling device defined as the following simple equation:

t a,i -t a,o t a,i -tWB

=1-exp(-

hc A ) m ac pa

(15)

III. Results and discussion

As can be seen from the equations for modeling indirect stage, the system is well described by five dimensionless parameters, which are NTU, Cf, Cw, R and /Le. This form is suitable for describing the results and conditions with just a few dimensionless parameters. Profiles of the primary air and water temperature for typical conditions are illustrated in Fig. 5(a) for secondary air up-flow and Fig. 5(b) for secondary air down-flow. This figure shows the effect of flow configuration on the distribution of temperature on the surface of heat exchanger. These figures represent the two-dimensional distribution of primary air and water temperature. Typical experimental data from a test set up which has been designed and constructed for investigation of operational parameters and climatic conditions effects on cooling performance has been used to validate modeling results. The result for a sample case has been presented in Fig. 6. As can be seen modeling result has a good agreement with experimental data both in value and the shape of the outlet temperature profile. It is concluded that the presented approach is capable to provide a two dimensional picture of temperature distribution on the heat exchanger surface. The experimental set up is capable to provide a wide variety range of climatic conditions and operational parameters. It has been designed modular and consists of four main modules as follows. Primary air humidity and temperature simulator Secondary air humidity and temperature simulator Two stage indirect/direct evaporative cooling system Control unit to set climatic and operational conditions

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Tf

Tw

xw/Lw

xa/La

0 0 xf/Lf a) Secondary air flows up

Tf

1 1 0 xf/Lf
Tw

xw/Lw

Figure 5. Profiles of water and primary air temperature in indirect cross flow configuration. NTU=3.0, Cf=2.0, Cw=4.0, R=1.5, /Le=1.0 tf,i=30C, ta,i= 30C, wa,i=0.01 Tf 1
1

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0

xf/Lf

20

25

30

35

40

Temperature

a) Model temperature distribution

b) Comparison between model and experimental outlet temperature profiles

Figure 6. Results of temperature profiles of primary air in sample test of indirect cross flow cooler. 9 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
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Nondimentiontioal height

xa/La 1 0 b) Secondary air flows down xf/Lf 1

1 0 xf/Lf 1

xa/La

Inlet Model Outlet Experiment +5% -5%

0.8

A schematic diagram of test set up has been illustrated in Fig. 7. As mentioned above the purpose of test set up development is to research the application potential of two stage indirect/direct cooling system for a country with multi climatic condition such as Iran. The results of these tests will be presented in upcoming papers to support the previous predicted data14.

Figure 7. Schematic diagram of test set up. As can be seen from previous figures water temperature is not constant and its variation must be taken into account. The effect of water flow rate on the averaged water temperature profile in the direction of its flow has been shown in Fig. 8. It could be seen that increasing rate of circulating water increases its average temperature on the surface of heat exchanger, although sump water temperature decreases. As can be seen, increasing water flow rate flattens its temperature profile and increases its average temperature value. As water flow rate increases, because of increasing average water temperature, cooling efficiency decreases. So it could be concluded that increasing water flow rate lowers cooling efficiency and flattens water temperature profile while decreasing water flow rate causes increasing cooling efficiency with a gradient in the water temperature profile. Then water flow rate should be kept as minimum as possible, but lowering water flow rate may cause incomplete wetting. This effect has been shown in Fig. 9. As can be seen cooling efficiency exponentially deteriorates due to incomplete wetting. For a specified cooling system there could be found a minimum water flow rate which keeps the surface wet enough. Effect of NTU on indirect cooling effectiveness in different air flow ratios is shown in Fig. 10. As can be seen cooling effectiveness is under the control of primary to secondary air flow ratio and this parameter determines the shape of this curve. Cooling effectiveness in direct cooling based on Eq. (15) has been shown in Fig. 11. Comparing this simple analytical equation with experimental data15 for a cellulose pad shows good agreement.

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24

23

Tw[C]

Cw=0.4
22

Cw=1.0 Cw=2.0 Cw=4.0

21 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1

xw/L Figure 8. Effect of water flow rate on averaged water temperature profile. NTU=3.0, Cf=1.0, Cw=0.4~4.0, R=1, /Le=1.0 tf,i=30C, ta,i= 30C, wa,i=0.01
80 75 70

Cooling effectiveness %

65 60 55 50 45 40 35 30 1 1.5 2

Sigma/Le=1.0 Sigma/Le=0.75 Sigma/Le=0.5

2.5

Cf
Figure 9. Effect of surface wetting on cooling effectiveness versus airflow ratio. NTU=3.0, Cf=1.0~3.0, Cw=2.0, R=1, /Le=0.5~1.0 tf,i=30C, ta,i= 30C, wa,i=0.01

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100

Cf=1.0
90 80

Cf=2.0 Cf=3.0

Cooling effectiveness %

70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1 2 3 4 5 6

NTU
Figure 10. Effect of NTU on indirect cooling effectiveness in different air flow ratios. NTU=1.0~6.0, Cf=1.0~3.0, Cw=4.0, R=1, /Le=1.0 tf,i=30C, ta,i= 30C, wa,i=0.01

Figure 11. Cooling effectiveness in direct cooling based on equation (15) compared with experimental data [Ref. 15].

IV. Conclusion
Using the general mathematical heat and mass transfer model for evaporative devices, which takes into account water temperature and flow rate variation, modeling of a cross flow two-stage evaporative cooler has been presented. The indirect stage is well described by the numerical solution of energy and mass balance equations while the direct stage effectiveness is determined by an analytical simple equation, which is suitable for cellulose paper pads. Two-stage evaporative cooler could provide comfort conditions in some major cities of Iran where direct cooling system is unable to meet comfort requirements.

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References
El-Dessouky, H., Ettouney, H., Al-Zeefari. A., Performance analysis of two-stage evaporative coolers, Chemical Engineering Journal, Vol. 102, 2004, pp. 255266. 2 Scofield, C. M., DesChamps, N. H., Indirect evaporative cooling using plate type heat exchangers ASHRAE Trans, Vol. 90, 1984, pp. 148153. 3 Al-Juwayhel, F. I., Al-Haddad, A. A., Shaban, H. I., El-Dessouky, H. T. A., Experimental investigation of the performance of two-stage evaporative cooler Heat Transfer Eng, Vol. 18, 1997, pp. 2133. 4 Maclaine-Cross, I. L., Banks, P. J., A general theory of wet surface heat exchangers and its application to regenerative cooling ASME J. Heat Transfer, Vol. 103, 1981, pp. 579-585. 5 Hsu, S.T., Lavan, Z., Worek, W. M., Optimization of wet surface heat exchangers, Energy, Vol. 14, 1989, pp. 757-770. 6 Pescod, D., A heat exchanger for energy saving in an air conditioning plant, ASHRAE Trans, Vol. 85, 1979, pp. 238-251. 7 Kettleborough, C. F., Hsieh, C. S., The thermal performance of the wet surface plastic plate heat exchanger used as an indirect evaporative cooler, ASME J. Heat Transfer, Vol. 105, 1983, pp. 366-373. 8 Erens, P. J., Dreyer, A. A., Modeling of indirect evaporative air cooler, Heat Mass Transfer, Vol. 36, 1993, pp. 17-26. 9 Chengqin, R., Hongxing, Y., An analytical model for the heat and mass transfer processes in indirect evaporative cooling with parallel/counter flow configurations, Heat Mass Transfer, Vol. 49, 2006, pp. 617-627. 10 Halasz, B., A general mathematical model of evaporative cooling devices, Rev. Gen. Therm, Vol. 37, 1998, Elsevier, Paris, pp. 245255. 11 Hasan, A. A. Performance analysis of heat transfer processes from wet and dry surfaces: cooling towers and heat exchangers, Doctoral dissertation. Helsinki University of technology, 2005. 12 Watt, J. R., Brown, W. K., Evaporative air conditioning handbook. Lilburn: Fairmont Press. 1997. 13 Heidarinejad, Gh., Bozorgmehr, M., Modeling of indirect evaporative air coolers, Proceeding of 2nd PALENC and 28th AIVC conference, Crete island, Greece,Vol. 1, 2007, pp. 416420. 14 Heidarinejad, Gh., Bozorgmehr, M., Heat and mass transfer modeling of two stage indirect-direct evaporative air coolers, ASHRAE JOURNAL (Thailand Chapter) Vol. 1, 2007-2008, pp. 2-8. 15 Camargo, J. R., Ebinumab, C. D., Silveira, J. L., Experimental performance of a direct evaporative cooler operating during summer in a Brazilian city, International Journal of Refrigeration, Vol. 28, 2005, pp. 11241132.
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