Simulation for evaporative cooling in partially wetted plate heat mass exchanger

Abstract

The thermal characteristics of a M-cycle counter flow type plate heat exchanger (PHE), intended for use as a cooler, has been investigated numerically as an indirect evaporative cooler. For a fixed heat exchanger length (L = 50d) and the space between plates (d = 6 mm), the investigation included a numerical simulation for the PHE and the study of its performance with the variation in the number of the wetted zone (n) from 1 to 16 for inlet Reynolds number Re = 200. The computational results indicate that the heat exchanger performs better with the number of the wetted zone, high inlet air temperature and low relative humidity. Results show that the cooler consumes less water and it is an environmentally friendly cooler for dry areas.