An Study About the Performance Assessment of Indirect Evaporative Cooling (Iec) |

ABSTRACT:

Indirect evaporative cooling (IEC) is an interestingpassive cooling technique in which the extracted air is cooled by means ofadiabatic humidification. By passing over an air/air heat exchanger this aircools down the supply air. A clear interaction can be observed between therelative humidity of the extracted air and the thermal comfort realized in thebuilding. In this work, the effects of air stream direction in thechannels of indirect evaporative cooler (IEC) on system performance have beeninvestigated. In addition, the dependence of system performance on outdoor airtemperature and relative humidity has been studied to determine the allowableconditions for proper operation of the system, with respect to thermal comfortcriteria. In an indirect evaporative cooling (IEC) installation theextracted air is cooled by means of adiabatic humidification. By passing overan air/air heat exchanger this air cools down the supply air. A clearinteraction can be observed between the relative humidity of the extracted airand the thermal comfort realized in the building. To be able to predict theperformances of this technique well, a good knowledge of the indoor relativehumidity is thus important. This paper presents the results of measurements carriedout in the summer of 2006 in a nonresidential building which makes use ofindirect evaporative cooling. An evaluation of the indoor summer comfort ismade and the interaction between the thermal performance and the indoorhumidity is investigated. Furthermore, using the multizone building simulationprogram TRNSYS, simulations were performed to evaluate the parameters influencingthe room moisture balance.