Volume 7: Urban Energy Systems: Building, Transport, Environment, Industry, and Integration

Numerical Investigation on the Hollow Fiber Membrane-Based Evaporative Cooling System Weichao Yan, Xin Cui*, Liwen Jin, Xiangzhao Meng

Abstract

A mathematical model has been developed to theoretically investigate the heat and moisture transfer between water and air in a hollow fiber membrane- based evaporative cooling module. We validated the model by comparing its outlet air dry bulb temperature and relative humidity against experimental data acquired from literature sources. The numerical model showed good agreement with the experimental findings with maximum discrepancy of 7%. The validated model was employed to investigate the influences of the inlet air velocity, inlet air dry-bulb temperature, inlet air relative humidity and geometric parameters on the cooling effect of the evaporative cooling module. The simulation results have been employed to propose optimization suggestions for the design of the hollow fiber membrane-based evaporative cooling module.

Keywords Evaporative cooling, Hollow fiber membrane, Heat and mass transfer, Numerical simulation