Performance investigation of regenerative total heat exchanger with periodic flow

Abstract

This study proposes a new regenerative type of the periodic total heat exchanger system, which consists of four centrifugal fans and two fixed wheels. The total heat exchanger, which operates periodically to replace the rotation of the fixed wheel in conventional design, can save more energy from motors. The fixed wheels alternately store and release energy using the heat and moisture storage materials of aluminum and silica gel. The operation periods are 2 min, 3 min, 4 min, 6 min, and 8 min. The results show that under the temperature and humidity ratio differences of 10 °C and 4g/kg between indoors and outdoors, the operating period of 3 min has the best performance of sensible heat effectiveness, latent heat effectiveness, and total heat effectiveness. When the temperature and humidity differences increase, the optimal operating period becomes shorter. In order to increase heat effectiveness, adding another high temperature and low moisture air for regeneration in the total heat exchanger increases the latent heat effectiveness, but the sensible heat effectiveness decreases.