Experimental assessment of multi-purpose evaporative type cooler used for refrigeration and air cooling

The objective of this research is to design, manufacture and test a multi-purpose evaporative type cooler which can be employed for refrigeration as well as space cooling. The focus in this study has been on utilization of cooled water obtained during the air cooling process of desert cooler. The intended application for utilization of this cooled water was for refrigeration of food stuff such as fruits and beverages. The refrigeration area considered here is the storage box kept inside the water tank of desert cooler. This storage box is cooled by heat transfer between the walls of storage box and the surrounding water in the tank of desert cooler. Three cooling loads of 3 W, 6 W and 9 W inside the storage box were tested. Experiments were done in the climate of eastern province of Saudi Arabia. Based on the findings of this study, the performance of the proposed cooler is considered to be reasonably well. The air was found to cool by maximum of 6 °C while the temperature inside storage box was cooled by a maximum of 9.2 °C. The highest coefficient of performance of the multi-purpose evaporative type cooler is reported to be 8.6. © 2021