Conductive Thermal Interaction in Evaporative Cooling Process

Abstract

It has long been recognized that evaporative cooling is an effective and logical substitute for mechanical cooling in hot-arid climates. This paper explores the application of evaporative coolers to the hot-humid climates using a controlled temperature of the incoming water. With exploitation of the effect of the thermal conduction between cool underground water and entering air, the performance of an evaporative cooler can be enhanced and its use in hot and moderately humid climates should also be considered. Usually the dry-bulb depression performed by an evaporative cooler depends solely on the ambient wet-bulb temperature. The cool underground water in an evaporative cooler can cause not only adiabatic evaporation but also sensible heat transfer between water and entering air for thermal comfort. This hybrid system outperforms the two-stage evaporative cooler without employing a complicated heat exchanger (indirect system), if the temperature of underground water is lower than the ambient wet-bulb temperature. Several areas in the southern hot-humid parts of the U.S. meet this condition.