Experimental Performance Analysis of a Direct Evaporative Cooler

Abstract

In recent years, the direct evaporative cooler has been introduced because of low energy consumption and easy maintenance. The evaporative cooling system is useful in places where the climate is hot and dry. The objective of this work is to investigate the performance of an evaporative cooler in hot and humid regions. The performance of a direct evaporative cooling system is evaluated with different operating conditions. Rectangular shaped honeycomb cooling pads with a length of 26 cm, width of 20 cm and thickness of 5 cm is used as a cooling media. Parameters for the performance assessment were inlet temperature, saturation efficiency, cooler capacity, feasibility index and output temperature. The results showed that the output temperature of the air varies between 24.9°C and 26.7°Celcius, while the cooling capacity is between 1.06 kW and 2.08 kW and saturation efficiency between 67.23 % to 77.27 % is achievable. The results showed that evaporative cooling is achievable with feasibility index 11.86 < F*< 17.84. The results show that the evaporative cooler can reduce dry bulb temperature up to a maximum of 7.6°C with relative humidity in the range of 68 % to 77 %. The results also affirmed that cooler capacity and the saturation index are higher where the feasibility indexes are comparatively low.