Central Air Conditioning Systems with Partial Indirect Evaporative Cooling and Utilization of Cold and Heat of Ventilation Emissions

Abstract

A promising trend in air conditioning systems is the use of indirect evaporative cooling, but in the classic version it is effective in dry and hot climates. For the need to maintain comfortable air parameters in public buildings, it is not possible to fully implement such a process in the conditions of Ukraine (the relative humidity of the outside air ranges from 63 to 75 %). The aim of the work is to increase the energy efficiency of air conditioning systems with standard equipment through partial evaporative cooling and use for cooling water in cooling towers of the air removed from the rooms during the warm season, and in the cold season - use of the exhaust air for preheating the supply air in heat exchanger. A corresponding system diagram was developed and computational studies of a direct-flow circuit and a circuit with recirculation were carried out for one of the educational buildings of the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. According to the results of calculating the direct-flow circuit in the warm period, the energy efficiency of indirect evaporative cooling was 23.5 %. The annual amount of recovered heat of ventilation emissions for this scheme in the cold period was 3731 GJ / year, and the economic effect - 1473185 UAH / year. For a circuit with recirculation during a warm period, the greatest effect of indirect evaporative cooling is achieved with a recirculation rate of 10 %, and for the overall decrease in the cooling capacity of the air conditioner during this period the greatest impact is not indirect evaporative cooling, but recirculation. In the cold season, the greatest utilization effect is also achieved with a 10 % recirculation rate.