Surface wettability effect on an indirect evaporative cooling system
- Modine Manufacturing Co., Racine, WI (United States)
- Marquette Univ., Milwaukee, WI (United States). Coll. of Engineering
Indirect evaporative air coolers that use air-to-air plate-type heat exchangers show good promise (compared with compression air-conditioning systems) of extending the energy savings from arid, low-humidity areas to more widespread climatic conditions. However, no systematic experiment had been done concerning the effect of the wettability of aluminum plates on the effectiveness of the indirect evaporative cooling system. In this study, a testing apparatus was built where only one secondary channel and two primary channels were used so that different surfaces could be easily tested to determine the system`s effectiveness and the heat transfer coefficient. The advantage of this experimental apparatus is that plates of the heat exchanger can be easily changed in the test section instead of fabricating a complete heat exchanger for each test. A dynamic contact analyzer was used to quantitatively measure the wetting properties in terms of advancing and receding contact angles and the water-retention capacity of the different surfaces. It was found that most of the wicking surfaces had at least zero receding contact angles and some even had zero advancing contact angles. In this case, the water retention test had to be used to compare different surfaces. A relationship was found between the water retention ability and the system`s effectiveness.
- OSTI ID:
- 392470
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-960254-; TRN: IM9647%%324
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Winter meeting of American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers, Atlanta, GA (United States), 17-21 Feb 1996; Other Information: PBD: 1996; Related Information: Is Part Of ASHRAE transactions 1996: Technical and symposium papers. Volume 102, Part 1; PB: 1278 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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