Experimental study of a novel water-spraying configuration in indirect evaporative cooling

Indirect evaporative cooler (IEC) is a clean cooling device in development for air conditioning systems. It uses the water to partially replace the refrigerant and can be applied as a standalone cooling system or an energy recovery ventilation system. Driven by the concern about the sustainability, IEC has been required to reduce the power to operate and increase its capacity in order to reduce the energy consumption and increase the overall efficiency of the air condition system. The water distribution over the plate walls in the cooler is a key factor affecting the IEC performance and efficiency. This study investigates the effect of a novel suggested water spray configuration on the performance of a ventilation energy recovery IEC. Experiments were conducted to investigate three water spray modes: external spray, internal spray and mixed internal and external sprays. The results show that the mixed mode performs best and internal spraying mode performs better than the external spraying mode does in terms of the wet-bulb efficiency, cooling capacity and the COP of IEC. The mixed mode improves the performance further by increasing wettability.