Two Stage Indirect/Direct Evaporative Cooling

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Two Stage Indirect/Direct Evaporative Cooling

Abhishek Sharma1, Hemant Darokar2
ME (Heat Power) student1, Assistant Professor2
abtau56@gmail.com1, hemantdarokar@rediffmail.com2

Abstract—The performance of two-stage indirect/direct A. DIRECT EVAPORATIVE COOLING

evaporative cooling system is experimentally investigated.
For this purpose, a two-stage evaporative cooling In direct evaporative cooling sensible heat energy
experimental setup consisting of an indirect evaporative evaporates some water, and reduced the air‟s dry
cooling stage (IEC) followed by a direct evaporative cooling bulb temperature. Greater the differences in dry bulb
stage (DEC) was designed, constructed and tested. Two air and wet bulb temperatures; better is the cooling effect
simulators are provided to simulate outdoor design to the space and the temperature of saturated moist air
condition in primary and secondary air streams. To achieve is achieved almost near the wet bulb temperatures.
comfort conditions and power saving the system has been
investigated with related excess water consumption.
Considering the evaporative comfort zone, this system can
provide comfort condition in a vast region where direct
evaporative system alone is not able to provide summer
comfort condition. More than 60% power saving could be
achieved by this system in comparison with mechanical
vapor compression systems and 55% increase in water
consumption with respect to direct evaporative cooling
systems. This system can complete the gap between direct
evaporative cooling systems and mechanical vapor
compression systems as an energy efficient and
environmentally clean alternate.

I. INTRODUCTION Fig. 1. DIRECT EVAPORATIVE COOLING

Evaporativecoolingisanenvironmentallyfriendlyand Direct evaporative cooling, commonly used for
energyefficientmethodforcoolingbuildingsinhotand residential, commercial, and industrial systems, cools
dryregions.Indiaasamulti-climatecountrydemandsav the air by evaporation of water to increase the
arietyofcoolingsystemstoachieveoptimizedenergyco moisture content of the air. In industrial system
nsumption,reduceemission,andprovidesummercomf mainly uses cellulose pads as evaporative medium. A
ortcondition.Manytypesofnaturalandpassivemethod standard residential system uses evaporative media
swereusedforcoolingbuildings.Allofthesemethodsh of shredded aspen fibers, typically 1 to 2 inches thick.
avebeenworkedbasedonnatural These systems have an effectiveness of 55 to 70
ventilation.Windtowerandshapeofbuildingarethema percent. When hot and dry air blows through wet
inelementsinthesetraditionalcoolingmethods,which medium, the water gets saturated and evaporates.
deviateandconveyoutsideairtobuildings. This evaporation of water provides cooling effects.
Two principle methods of evaporative cooling are The effectiveness of evaporative cooling system is
commonly used, the direct (DEC) and the indirect defined by the types of evaporative media used and it
one (IEC).DEC is the simplest, oldest, and the most also depends on its thickness. Effectiveness is
widespread form of evaporative air conditioning. determined by the performance of evaporative
This system typically uses a fan to draw hot outdoor cooling system. It is defined by following equation:
air into a porous wetted medium. The water absorbs Tdb −SAT
heat as it evaporates from the porous wetting ε= (1)
Tdb −Twb
medium, and the air thus leaves the DEC at a lower Where Tdb is the outdoor dry-bulb temperature, Twb
temperature.In fact, dry bulb temperature of the air is the outdoor wet-bulb temperature and ЅАТ is the
reduces as it is moistened in thisadiabatic saturation supply air temperature leaving the evaporative
process. The principle underlying DEC is the cooler.
conversion of sensible heat to latent heat. The wetted
medium could be a porous wetted pad consisting of Evaporative cooling system design is directly
fibers, cellulose papers or a spray of water. affected by dry bulb, wet bulb temperature, and
relative humidity. The main restriction of direct
evaporative cooling is air moisture content present in
the air. Evaporative cooling systems are of increasing
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Special Issue on International Journal on Theoretical and Applied Research in Mechanical Engineering (IJTARME) V-7 Issue-1, 2018
ISSN (Print): 2319-3182, For A National Conference on Insights in Mechanical Engineering 2018
Indira college of Engineering and Management, Pune 10th February 2018
41
 Two Stage Indirect/Direct Evaporative Cooling
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choice because of their lower energy consumption

compared to any other refrigerated system, first
simplicity in design, low initial cost, and ease of
installation, operation, and maintenance. It does not
use refrigerants such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs),
which may cause harmful effects on the human
health and the environment. Another attractive
feature of evaporative system is that most air
contaminants such as dust, dirt, bacteria, and other Fig. 2. TYPES OF DEC SYSTEM PADS
impurities are washed out in the re-circulated water. 2) PASSIVE DIRECT EVAPORATIVE COOLING
When the water evaporates, only pure water is
released and air circulation fan supplies 100% fresh Passive cooling techniques use natural
and cooled air to the space. phenomena, energies, and heat sinks for cooling
buildings without the use of mechanical apparatus
1) ACTIVE DIRECT EVAPORATIVE consume electrical energy. However, small fans and
COOLING SYSTEM pumps could be required. Passive DEC is relied on
The active direct evaporative coolers are the climate which means the techniques applied for
electricity-driven systems, however, it use a fraction hot and humid regions are different from those for
of power for air and water circulation. So, it is hot and arid areas. This technology is able to reduce
considered much less energy intensive than other indoor air temperature by about 9 ℃ . The main types
traditional cooling technologies, with energy saving of passive direct evaporative cooling building
up to 90%. A typical direct evaporative cooler integrated systems are:
comprises of evaporative media (wettable and porous (a)The Mashrabiya
Pads), fan blows air through the wetted medium,
water tank, recirculation pump and water distribution (b) Wind Towers
system. The direct evaporative cooling is an adiabatic (c) Roof-Pound
cooling process, i.e. the total enthalpy of the air is
constant throughout the process. The water absorbs B. INDIRECT EVAPORATIVE COOLING
the sensible heat from the supply air and evaporates SYSTEM
causing the air temperature decreases and its In indirect evaporative cooling systems heat and
humidity to increase mass transfer takes place and uses an air to air heat
Theoretically, the supply air could be cooled to 100% exchanger to remove heat from the primary air
effectiveness, but in such process a wet-bulb stream without addition of moisture by means of
effectiveness of 70%-80% only is achievable because cooled secondary stream evaporative. During the
of short contact time between the two fluids, heating season, an indirect system‟s heat exchanger
insufficient wettability of the pads and due to the fact can preheat outside air if exhaust air is used as the
that the circulated water and the supply air will reach secondary air stream. In one configuration, hot dry
an equilibrium point that is equal to the wet-bulb outside air is passed through a series of horizontal
temperature of the supply air. Eventually the system tubes that are wetted on the outside. A secondary air
would not be able to cool down the incoming air stream blows over the outside of the coils and
lower than its wet-bulb temperature. The wet-bulb exhausts the warm, moist air to the outdoors. The
effectiveness could reach range between 70-95% in outside air is cooled without adding moisture as it
most current commercial DEC coolers and mainly passes through the tubes. Indirect evaporative
as a function of the type and thickness of cooling typically has an effectiveness of 60-80%. In
evaporative media, working climate, and supply air indirect evaporative process air moisture content
flow-rate. stays constant during temperature decreasing. Due to
less energy losses in indirect evaporative cooling
According to ASHRAE Handbook-HVAC Systems process; it results in less effective than direct
and Equipment (2008) active DEC could be divided evaporative, because energy needed in vaporization
according to types of wet media into: Random media is taken from the same environment. Indirect
DEC, Rigid media DEC and Remote media DEC as evaporative cooling systems takes advantage of
shown in figure 2. evaporative cooling effects, but cools without raising
indoor humidity. As cooling of the primary air stream
takes place by heat transfer across the heat exchanger
walls without the mixing of the two air streams, the
primary air stream becomes cooler without an
increase in its humidity. While the greater number of
air passes increases the pressure drop and the
required fan power, the high effectiveness extends
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Special Issue on International Journal on Theoretical and Applied Research in Mechanical Engineering (IJTARME) V-7 Issue-1, 2018
ISSN (Print): 2319-3182, For A National Conference on Insights in Mechanical Engineering 2018
Indira college of Engineering and Management, Pune 10th February 2018
42
 Two Stage Indirect/Direct Evaporative Cooling
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the geographic range where the indirect evaporative (c) Due to supply of humid air in the room, the air
cooler can fully meet the cooling demand. In some within the room will get saturated.
applications, the greater temperature difference
(d) Evaporative cooling systems need more frequent
between the secondary and primary air is that the
maintenance.
secondary air temperature is lower than the
dew-point temperature of the primary air and results (e) Ductwork is required in Evaporative cooling
dehumidification of the primary air in this cooling systems.
process i.e. condensation from primary air, especially
in hot and wet climates. In both the above cases of Direct evaporative cooler
(DEC) and Indirect evaporative cooler (IEC) the
minimum temperature to which air can be cooled
theoretically is the wet bulb temperature (WBT) of
the incoming air. Therefore a combination of above
two systems called indirect-direct two stage
evaporative cooling is used to improve the
performance of the whole system. Such a system
reduces the dry bulb temperature (DBT) of incoming
air in a heat exchanger before it passes to the direct
stage. Such a system can ultimately reduce the
temperature of the incoming air below its WBT.
C. INDIRECT DIRECT EVAPORATIVE
Fig. 3. INDIRECT EVAPORATIVE COOLING COOLING SYSTEM
The effectiveness of indirect evaporative cooling can be Two-stage indirect/direct evaporative coolers as
expressed as: shown in Figure 4 can cool air to lower temperatures
t1−t2 than are attainable with direct (“one-stage”)
ε= (2) evaporative coolers, and add less moisture to the
t1−twb 1

ε = indirect evaporative cooling effectiveness, % indoor air. In these coolers, a first-stage indirect
evaporative cooler lowers both the dry bulb
t1 = dry bulb temperature of entering primary air ̊C temperature (DBT) and wet bulb temperature (WBT)
t2 = dry bulb temperature of leaving primary air , ̊C of the incoming air. After leaving the indirect stage,
the supply air passes through a second stage direct
𝑡wb1= wet bulb temperature of entering secondary air, ̊C evaporative cooler. Figure 5 shows the cooling
process on a psychrometric chart. First-stage cooling
Direct Evaporative Cooling system (DEC) and
follows a line of constant humidity ratio as no
Indirect Evaporative Cooling system (IEC) are two
moisture is added to the primary airstream; the
main groups in evaporative cooling systems. In hot
second stage follows the WBT line at the condition of
and humid or temperate and humid regions where the
the air leaving the first stage.
DEC and IEC systems do not provide comfort
condition, mechanical vapor compression cooling
systems are used. Some advantages of evaporative
cooling systems in comparison with mechanical
vapor compression systems are as following:
(a) Reduction in input power and input current.
(b) Using water as the working fluid which is
environmentally friendly
(c) Elimination of CFC gases which are harmful to
Fig. 4. INDIRECT DIRECT EVAPORATIVE
ozone layer
COOLING
(d) Ability to induce fresh air into the room.
(e) Base price is low.
Also, some disadvantages of evaporative cooling
systems are as following:
(a) Water supply restrictions in an area where there
is scarcity of water.
(b) Evaporative cooling systems will have little or
no cooling effect in a moist environment.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Special Issue on International Journal on Theoretical and Applied Research in Mechanical Engineering (IJTARME) V-7 Issue-1, 2018
ISSN (Print): 2319-3182, For A National Conference on Insights in Mechanical Engineering 2018
Indira college of Engineering and Management, Pune 10th February 2018
43
 Two Stage Indirect/Direct Evaporative Cooling
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than DEC but a combination of both can reduce the

temperature of incoming air below its WBT.
Maheshwari2001 compared the power requirements
of an IEC unit with conventional packaged air
conditioner. They concluded that the best
performance of IEC unit coincides with the hour of
maximum cooling capacity and peak power demand
of conventional unit and it offers maximum reduction
in cooling capacity and peak power demand.
El-Dessouky1996 used the concept of pre-cooling
the air before DEC without using cooling tower.
Structured, sheathy leaf and natural fiber packing
was used as cooling media with varying thickness
and flow of water. They observed that effectiveness
Fig. 5. INDIRECT DIRECT EVAPORATIVE increased with packing thickness and flow rate of
COOLING PROCESS water to IEC. Structured packing showed higher
Different researchers have made the effort to improve effectiveness than sheathy leaf and natural fiber.
the performance of these systems by changes in Dowdy and Karbash 1987 tested rigid impregnated
design, process and materials. cellulose media experimentally to determine heat and
G. Heidarinejad 2009 experimentally investigated mass transfer coefficients for evaporative cooling
the cooling performance of two stage indirect/direct process. They used the sample of rigid cellulose
evaporative cooling system in various simulated media having wetted surface area of 350 m2/m3 with
climatic conditions in Iran. They used plastic wet thickness 305 mm and obtained saturation efficiency
surface heat exchanger as an IEC unit and 15 cm between 90 to 94 %.
thick cellulose pad for a DEC unit. They obtained an
effectiveness of IEC unit in the range of 55 % -61 % II. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
and effectiveness of IEC/DEC unit in the range of To evaluate performance of IEC/DEC system and in
108 % -111 %. They also reported 55 % more water order to investigate effect of operational parameters,
consumption than DEC unit and power consumption an experimental setup was designed and constructed
as 33 % of mechanical cooling systems. as shown in Fig. 6. Test setup consists of four major
Jain 2007 developed and tested a two stage modules:
evaporative cooler to improve the efficiency by using 1) A primary air simulator including a centrifugal fan
wooden shave as the packing material. Room return provided with a frequency inverter to adjust flow rate,
air was evaporatively cooled and used in a heat electrical heating elements, and electrical humidifier.
exchanger to cool the incoming dry air. The This module adjusts flow rate, temperature, and
effectiveness ranged from 1.1 to 1.2 and this cooler relative humidity in primary air stream. A straighter
could achieve favourable temperature and relative was installed to achieve airflow uniformity.
humidity conditions for storage of tomatoes for 14
days. 2) Secondary air simulator is similar to primary air
simulator in secondary air stream.
Camargo 2005 developed a mathematical model for a
DEC and presented their experimental results of the 3) IEC/DEC unit including a polycarbonate wet
tests using rigid cellulose media with wetted surface surface heat exchanger as IEC unit, a cellulose pad as
area of 370 m2/m3. The effectiveness relation DEC unit, a water circulating pump and two flow
derived in terms of heat transfer coefficient, mass meters and two valves to control water flow rate of
flow rate of air, wetted surface area and humid indirect and direct evaporative systems. Water is
specific heat is useful in predicting the performance distributed over indirect and direct systems using
of different pad materials. They concluded that the proper spray nozzles.
effectiveness is higher at higher dry bulb temperature 4) Control panel for setting steady-state temperature
and lower air speeds. and relative humidity and flow rate of primary and
El-Dessouky 2004 carried out theoretical and secondary air.
experimental study on small scale evaporative As shown in Fig. 6, temperature and relative
cooling unit using structured packing material of high humidity (RH) are measured in the following
density polythene with wetted surface area of 420 positions:
m2/m3. They used a combination of DEC and IEC
and concluded that the efficiency of IEC unit is less a) Air temperature and RH before the IEC unit in
primary andsecondary flows.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Special Issue on International Journal on Theoretical and Applied Research in Mechanical Engineering (IJTARME) V-7 Issue-1, 2018
ISSN (Print): 2319-3182, For A National Conference on Insights in Mechanical Engineering 2018
Indira college of Engineering and Management, Pune 10th February 2018
44
 Two Stage Indirect/Direct Evaporative Cooling
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b) Air temperature after the IEC unit in primary flow.

c) Air temperature and RH after the IEC unit in
secondary flow.
d) Air temperature and RH after the DEC unit.
III. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE
In Indirect evaporative cooler, hot and dry secondary air
enters the heat exchanger from the bottom duct. Water
flowingalong the polycarbonate plates in downward
direction gets evaporated due to heat of air and takes heat
from air as well as plates. As a result the temperature of
plates is reduced. Warm and humid secondary air is Fig. 6. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
discharged through the upper duct on the same side. The B. EVAPORATIVE COOLER EFFIECIENCY RATIO
primary air enters the indirect evaporative cooler
horizontally from the primary air simulator due to suction ECER, defined as the ratio of the cooling delivery volume
of air in primary fan. The cooling effect produced in to electrical power related to the IEC, is measured on
secondary channels is transferred to the primary air the condition of intake air dry/wet bulb temperature of
flowing through the alternate channels and thus primary 32.8/ 20.6 1ºC and room air temperature of 26.7 1ºC. This
air gets cooled. The primary air travels in horizontal could be expressed in the following equation:
direction through the IEC and enters the DEC on the ECER = ρf cf [t room − t p,db ,in − t p,wb ,in )]Vp,out /W(5)
opposite side.
C. COOLING CAPACITY
In direct evaporative cooler, primary air comes in contact
with wetted pad surface. Water on the pad surface The cooling capacity refers to the enthalpy change of
getsevaporated by taking heat from incoming air. Thus the product air when travelling across the dry channels of
the temperature of primary air is reduced in two stages the IEC heat exchanger, and is expressed as follows:
first in IEC and then in DEC.
Q total = ρf Vp,out (ip,db ,in − ip,db ,out )(6)
IV. INDICATIVE PARAMETERS Since the air is cooled at the constant moisture
A. WET BULB & DEW POINT EFFECTIVENESS contentduring the dry channels of the IEC exchanger,
theenthalpy change of the air could be represented by the
Wet-bulb effectiveness is a parameter describing the temperature reduction of the air during its dry channel
extent of the approach of the outlet product air flow path. For this reason, the above equation could be
temperature of the IEC against the wet-bulb temperature rewritten as:
of the inlet working air, and can be written as:
𝐭 𝐩,𝐝𝐛,𝐢𝐧 −𝐭 𝐩,𝐝𝐛,𝐨𝐮𝐭
Q = cf ρf Vp,out (t p,db ,in − t p,db ,out )(7)
𝛆𝐰𝐛 = (3)
𝐭 𝐩,𝐝𝐛,𝐢𝐧−𝐭 𝐩,𝐰𝐛,𝐢𝐧 D. ENERGY EFFICIENCY
Dew point effectiveness is another parameter used for Energy efficiency, known as „coefficient of performance
this purpose and defined as the ratio of the temperature (COP), is the ratio of the cooling capacity of the IEC to
difference between the inlet and outlet product air to the the power consumption of the system. This term can be
difference between the inlet product air‟s dry bulb and mathematically expressed as:
inlet working air‟s dew point temperature. This reflects c f ρf V p ,out (t p ,db ,in −t p ,db ,out
Q
the extent of the approach of the outlet product air η= = (8)
W W
temperature against the dew point temperature of the
inlet working air related to the IEC, shown as follows: If this figure is multiplied by a unit conversion factor of
3.413, the COP is then converted into the energy
t p ,db ,in −t p ,dh ,out
εdp = (4) efficiency ratio (EER).
t p ,db ,in −t p ,db ,in
E. WATER EVAPORATION RATE
The water evaporation rate of an IEC system depends
upon a number of its operational parameters, e.g., the
inlet air temperature/humidity, airflow rate, treated
cooling load, as well as the swellas system‟s cooling
effectiveness. Theoreticallyspeaking, the water
evaporation rate is equal to the volume of the moisture
increase in the working air during its indirect cooling
operation and could be expressed as:

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Special Issue on International Journal on Theoretical and Applied Research in Mechanical Engineering (IJTARME) V-7 Issue-1, 2018
ISSN (Print): 2319-3182, For A National Conference on Insights in Mechanical Engineering 2018
Indira college of Engineering and Management, Pune 10th February 2018
45
 Two Stage Indirect/Direct Evaporative Cooling
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V s ,out ρs ,f cooling systems, so this cooling system can be used in

Vw = (Ws,out − Ws,in )(9)
ρw various climatic conditions as an environmentally clean
F. SECONDARY TO PRIMARY AIR RATIO and energy efficient system.

In an IEC system, the secondary air, known as the REFERENCE

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_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Special Issue on International Journal on Theoretical and Applied Research in Mechanical Engineering (IJTARME) V-7 Issue-1, 2018
ISSN (Print): 2319-3182, For A National Conference on Insights in Mechanical Engineering 2018
Indira college of Engineering and Management, Pune 10th February 2018
46