Experimental Study of Heat and Mass Transfer Coefficients in a Cross-Flow Heating Tower

A heating tower heat pump (HTHP), as a novel integrated heating and cooling unit, is drawing more and more attention due to its high efficiency, low limitation of geographic conditions and no frost issue. Heating tower is a significant unit of HTHP system and greatly affects system performance. This paper experimentally studies the heat and mass transfer characteristics of a cross-flow heating tower, which uses PVC structured packing and takes glycol as cycling fluid. The effects of the inlet parameters, including air and solution flow rates, air inlet temperature and humidity ratio, solution inlet temperature and concentration, on heat and mass transfer coefficients are investigated. Correlation expressions of heat and mass transfer coefficients are proposed, which shows the coefficients mainly depend on air and solution flow rates. And the Lewis number in this research is about 0.91~1.12. © 2017, Science Press. All right reserved.