Effect of Design and Operating Conditions on Performance of Desiccant Wheels

Abstract

Energy saving is strongly demanded in the air-conditioning field. A desiccant air-conditioning system is expected to meet this need because this systemcan be driven by the low-grade waste heat. The final goal of this study is to develop the high precision simulation code to investigate the optimumdesign and control method. The actual desiccant air-conditioning system is driven in a wide range of conditions. In this paper, effects of the rotational speed of the desiccant wheel, process air face velocity, thickness of the desiccant wheel and heat source temperature are investigated and the precision of the simulation model we have already developed is examined under the wide range of the design and operating conditions. Recently, not only the shortage of energy resources but also the global warming that is caused by carbon dioxide emissions becomes social issues. Thus, the research and development to realize the energy savings are going on in the air conditioning field. As a result, the performance of the desiccant wheel in a wide range of design and operating conditions was clarified by the simulation and experiment. And the simulation model could predict the performance of the desiccant wheel as a whole.