Heat transfer in a finned dehumidifier coil under partially wet condition

Conference · Thu Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 1999

OSTI ID:20026730

Rosario, L; Rahman, M M

The aim of this paper is the analysis of heat transfer in a radial fin assembly during the process of dehumidification. A numerical simulation of the fin with dry, wet, and partially wet boundary conditions have been carried out using a control volume based finite-difference method and compared with past analytical studies. The augmentation of heat transfer due to fin was calculated by comparing heat transfer rate with and without fins under the same operating conditions. In addition, the fin efficiency was calculated. The parameters that influenced the heat transfer rate in the finned tube structure are ratio of fin and wall thermal conductivities, ratio of fin thickness to fin pitch, ratio of wall thickness to fin pitch, ratio of fin length to fin pitch, cold fluid Biot number, ambient Biot number, the relative humidity and dry bulb temperature of the incoming air, and the cold fluid temperature inside the coil. Numerical calculations were carried out to study the performance of the heat exchanger for various combinations of these parameters. It was found that the heat transfer increased with increment in both dry bulb temperature and the relative humidity of the air. The results suggested that fin efficiency can be very significantly altered by the condensation phenomenon on the fin surface and designs with dry fin data may result in serious over or under prediction of coil performance. The present results are expected to be very useful for the design of dehumidifier (cooling) coils for air conditioning applications.

• Research Organization: Univ. of South Florida, Tampa, FL (US)
• OSTI ID: 20026730
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
AIR CONDITIONERS
AUGMENTATION
DEHUMIDIFIERS
DEHYDRATION
DESIGN
FINS
HEAT TRANSFER