A New Look at Evaporative Condensers

摘要

The evaporative condenser is one of the most efficient and compact methods of rejecting heat from refrigerating systems. Heat is rejected at a temperature that tends towards the wet bulb temperature of ambient air as distinct from air cooled condensers that reject heat to dry bulb temperatures. Even more important, the heat transfer coefficient is vastly increased by wetting the tubes and the mass flow of air is reduced to about 50% of that required in an air cooled condenser. Energy efficiency is becoming increasingly valued as the damaging effects of unnecessary power consumption become understood. The evaporative condenser provides a double benefit. It consumes less power than an air cooled condenser and it allows the refrigerating system to reject heat at a lower temperature, thus saving even more power. Despite these advantages there are serious disadvantages associated with the use of evaporative condensers. The evaporative condenser requires a supply of water and the water requires to be treated in some way.