Experimental investigation of thermal performance of three configurations evaporative cooling systems (ECS) using synthetic grass wet media materials

Abstract

Space cooling of buildings using evaporative cooling is a passive strategy that can provide thermal comfort for occupants and conserve energy. In this paper, an innovative evaporative cooling wet media material in the form of synthetic grass fibre mat was introduced to evaluate experimentally its effectiveness in Direct Evaporative Cooling (DEC), Indirect Evaporative Cooling (IEC), and Dew point evaporative cooling (DPEC). A laboratory evaporative cooling module was constructed and tested using a fully instrumented test rig and was subject to environmentally controlled conditions of air temperature and relative humidity (RH) commensurate to those prevailing in hot and dry climates like the Middle East. The wet bulb effectiveness and cooling capacity of evaporative coolers equipped with the new wet media material were evaluated experimentally. The results show that these evaporative coolers performance correlate well with current technology. For instance, the ambient air temperature is reduced by as much as 12.9 °C, 10.2 °C, and 10.3 °C for direct, indirect, and dew point modes, respectively. It was also shown that DEC achieved effectiveness 20 % higher than indirect evaporative coolers. The work demonstrated that the new wet media can be a viable alternative to organic and non-organic counterparts.