Experimental and numerical study on the air flow in the irregular exchanger channels of a counter-flow indirect evaporative cooler

摘要

The power consumption of the fans, which are one of the major components in an indirect evaporative cooler, greatly affects the unit efficiency.A novel Heat and Mass eXchanger (HMX) structure was proposed and studied experimentally and numerically.The key factor to improve the unit efficiency is to balance the demand of upgrading cooling capacity and the increase of fans power consumption.Combining the experimental and CFD simulation method, the flow analysis was conducted to study the drag characteristic of the air channels and to find the proper range of air volume flowrate.The results described the flow characteristic along the dry and wet channels and the power consumption under different air flowrate.The proper air flowrate ranges for desirable Coefficient of Performance (COP) were proposed between 0-500m3/hr and 0-1000 m3/hr for wet channels and dry channels respectively.The study provides a basis for the further exploration to optimum working-air ratio and proper fan selection which can meet the cooling demand in a wide range under the optimum operating condition.