Numerical Simulation and Experiment on Air Washer

with One Row Water Spray

Bo NI

College of Environmental Science & Engineering, Dong Hua University

Shanghai 200051 P.R. China (nibo@dhu.edu.cn)

Abstract
The main purpose of the present work is to acquire further insight into the procedure of heat and mass
transfer between sprayed water droplets and air stream in a direct evaporative air cooler used in air-
conditioning systems in textile mills. The thermodynamic models of the two-phase flow in such an air
treatment system have been developed for both the one row parallel flow spray and one row counter flow
spray. The fields of temperature and relative humidity in the spray chamber have been obtained by calcula-
tion. A series of experiments aimed at quantifying the system performance and its influence factors have
been conducted. This indicates that the increases of air velocity and water/air ratio, together with the
decrease of nozzle density are favorable. Comparison of these two different spray types have been carried
out by means of humidity efficiency. Finally, numerical calculations have been compared with experimental
results. Satisfactory agreements have been found regarding outlet air temperature while a maximum error of
10% has been observed regarding relative air humidity.

Keywords: evaporative air cooler; direct evaporative air-conditioning; coupled heat and mass transfer

Introduction turbulence and a finite difference method to solve

One of the most versatile and efficient means for air
treatment is by spraying the water directly into the air.
Utilized in a variety of applications such as; passive
cooling of buildings, fire fighting, spray combustion,
nuclear reactor core cooling, spray drying and dust or
odor removal, spray phenomena have been the subject
of numerous investigations. Studies conducted for
predicting detailed flow and thermal characteristics of
spray units, especially in fire fighting applications
have been presented by Mawwhinney et al. (1994).
Mohiuddin and Kant (1999) have analyzed the
mechanical-draft cooling tower and compared different
numerical models, from the point of view of design,
computational error, computational time, simplicity of
usage and practicability. Palaszewski et al. (1981) have
focused on modeling the thermodynamic phenomena
in spray units for power plant cooling ponds. With
these models, they could optimize the design, and
predict and improve the performance of spray units
used in power plants. A numerical simulation has been
carried out by Moussiopoulous and Ernst (1985) and
Moussiopoulous (1987) for predicting the thermal
performance of a circular spray cooling pond. They
have used a modified version of k-ε model for
Contact Author: Bo NI, College of Environmental Science &
Eng., Dong Hua Univ., Shanghai 200051 P.R. China
Tel: +86-21-6237-3321 Fax: +86-21-6237-3802
e-mail: nibo@dhu.edu.cn
(Received June 11, 2001; accepted December 19, 2001)
differential equations. They have concluded that their
numerical results were in agreement with experimental
observations. Apart from these investigations
mentioned above, even more attention has been given
to combustion with liquid fuel spray which is
characterized by large temperature gradient and forced
mass transfer caused by chemical reactions
( Mashayek, 1999, Stergele et al., 1999, Li et al., 1991,
Wong and Chang, 1992, Ghiaasiaan and Luo, 1994).
The direct evaporative air cooler has been used for
three decades in China. However, up to now, the
concerned mechanism of heat and mass transfer inside
the process has not been studied thoroughly. It involves
water droplets evaporating or condensing in finite
volume air current, the movement and trajectories of the
drops, the diameters of which are variable due to the
mass exchange with moist air, the performance of the
spray, interactions of the droplets and particle-laden
turbulent flow with two-way coupling, etc.
Motivated by the need to better understand the
physical phenomena in a direct evaporative air cooler
which is the basis of system optimization and its
performance improvement, the present work is carried
out on modeling the coupled heat and mass transfer
between air-flow and carried water droplets, modeling
the dynamic behavior of drops starting from their
injection into the flow field, as well as experimental
investigation of the system performance and its
influence parameters.

Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering/March 2002/150 143

Numerical Simulation of the Direct Evaporative Cooler pipes mounted vertically from the bottom to the top, a
The evaporative air cooler, frequently used in air basin at the bottom and eliminators at the exit. Several
conditioning systems in textile mills, consists essentially arrangements of spray nozzeles: parallel or opposite to
of spray nozzles arranged uniformly on supply water the air stream or a combination of the above two, several

NOMENCLATURE
A cross-section area t time
Ad surface area of drop T temperature
c concentration of vapor in surrounding air U drop velocity
CD drag coefficient v volume
CKn,w correction coefficient of Knudsen V air flow velocity
Ct, T temporal coefficient of heat transfer
Ct, w temporal coefficient of mass transfer Greek letters
Cp specific heat ρa density of air
dd drop diameter ρw density of water
Dv diffusivity coefficient of water vapor in λa heat conductivity of air
air
g gravity constant Subscripts
hm mass transfer coefficient a air
H enthalpy of moist air av average
m mass flow rate D drag
n number of drops d droplet
Nu Nusselt number s saturation
P duct perimeter v vapor
Pr Prantdtl number w water
Pspray spray pressure wall inner duct wall
rd drop radius 1 inlet
Red Reynolds drop number 2 outlet
RH relative humidity i droplets of the ith category
Sc Schmidt number
Sh Sherwood number

numbers of nozzle rows: 1, 2 or 3 rows, have been expressed by means of the concentration of vapor in
found in application. moist air as follows:
The present work focuses on the spray of one row dc n i h m ,i Ad ,i (c s ,i − c ) h m , wall P (c wall − c ) c dv c dρ a
for an adiabatic humidifying air treatment procedure. dx
= å
i U x ,i v
+
AV
−
v dx
−
ρ a dx
One row co-current spray (1)
dx
where ni is water droplets’ category number “i” in the
control volume, Ad,i is drop surface category “i”, A is
the cross-section of spray chamber and P is the duct
perimeter.
air Substituting the expressions of vapor mass flux of
droplet and film evaporation (NI, 1999), we have:
dc n é 3rdi Dv x ù
= å i 4πrd ,i Dv Sh(c s ,i − c )exp ê− ú
êë (bi − rd ,i ) U x ,i úû
3
dx i U x ,i v

x control volume c dv c dρ a (2)

+ 4ShDv (c s − c ) − −
v dx ρ a dx
Evolution of the drop diameter caused by the
Fig. 1. Direct evaporative air cooler with one row parallel evaporation can be expressed as follows:
flow spray é
drd ,i Dv Sh 3r D x ù
This kind of spray arrangement is shown schemati- =− (cs,i − c )expê− d ,i v3 ú (3)
cally in Fig.1. Water vapor contributed by the water dx U x ,i ρ d rd ,i ëê (bi − rd ,i ) U x ,i ûú
evaporation from moving drops in the chamber and Energy conservation of the air allows us to establish
from the wet surface of chamber walls, can be the equation of air temperature evolution:

144 JAABE vol.1 no.1 March 2002 Bo NI

dTa ni Lvap é 3rd ,i Dv x ù with the drag coefficient:
=å 4πrd ,i Dv Sh(cs ,i − c )exp ê− ú
dx i C p , av ρ a vU x ,i êë (bi − rd ,i ) U x ,i úû
3
CD =
24
Re
(1 + 0.15 Re 0.687 , )
ni
−å 4πrd ,i λ a Nu (Ta − Td ,i ) CA = 1 . 05 −
0 . 066 with
i C p , av ρ a vU x ,i (A C2 + 0 .12 )
H L
é P ù U −V
+ 4 Lvap ShDv (c wall − c )ê ú AC = H L
ëê C p ,av ρ aVA ûú
dd
(
d U −V )
é P ù dt
+ 4 Nuλ a (Twall − Ta )ê ú
ëê C p ,av ρ aVA ûú and C = 2 . 88 + 3 . 12

C p ,avTa + Lvap
c
H
(A 2
C +1 ) 3

ρ a é 1 dv 1 dρ a ù
− ê + ú
C p ,av ë v dx ρ a dx û The calculation is performed in three-dimension.
Lvap ,0 dc The spray chamber has a section of 1m×1m and a
− (4)
C p ,av ρ a dx
length of 1.8m. Sprayed water is characterized by the
nozzle density, the water temperature and spray
The right-hand side in the above equation shows the pressure which have a combined influence on the
latent heat from the water droplets, sensible heat from distributions of diameter and initial velocity of
the water droplets, latent heat from the wet surface of droplets, as well as their quantities. Once the type of
the walls, sensible heat from the wet surface of the nozzle is chosen, the number of the drops in the
walls, variation of sensible heat in moist air and control volume depends on the nozzle density which is
variation of latent heat in moist air, respectively. While a function of the nozzle flow rate and spray pressure.
the energy conservation equation of drops gives: In engineering application, the range of nozzle density
dTd ,i 3
= {λa Nu (Ta − Td ,i ) is usually within 13/m2 and 33/m2. We chose a nozzle
dx r ρ d C pe,i
2
d ,i density of 14/m2 in the present model. The nozzles are
é 3rd ,i Dv x ù ü dispersed uniformly over the cross-section of the
ï
− Lvap Dv Sh exp ê− ú (c s ,i − c )ý chamber.
ëê (bi − r d ,i )3
U ú
x ,i û ï
þ
dr (5)
− 4πrd2,i ρ d d ,i 35
dx 30
Relative correlations adopted are: 25
Ta (oC)

For the droplets, 20

Nu = 2 + 0.6 Re 0.5 Pr 0.33 15

Sh = 2 + 0.6 Re 0.5 Sc 0.33 10

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8
for wet surface of the walls, x (m)
0.8 0.33
Nu = 0.023 Re Pr 100

Sh = 0.023 Re 0.83 Sc 0.44 90

This provides all that is necessary to describe heat 80

RH (% )

and mass transfer phenomena in the spray chamber. 70

As for the dynamic behavior of the drops, considering 60

that the density of water is much greater than that of 50

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8
air and assuming that air pressure is constant x (m)
throughout the chamber and that the interaction Fig. 2. Temperature and humidity profiles in the spray chamber
between the drops and momentum exchange between with one row co-current spray
air and drops are negligible, we have the following The numerical simulation of the one row co-current
equation: H
H H L H spray is carried out using the Rünge-Kutta method (4)
πd 2
= − d ρ a C D (U − V )U − V
DU
ρd v with the help of MATLAB software. The calculation
Dt H 8L is stopped either by the condition of complete
− ρ aC Av
(
d U −V ) evaporation of the drops (when the drop diameter is
dt
H less than 10-9), or by the condition of saturation of
− v ( ρ d − ρ a )g moist air (when relative humidity is greater than
L
DV 0.999), or by local drop coordinates which pass over
− ρav our domain of interest (1.8m×1m×1m).
Dt H L
(
d U −V
t
) Numerical results of air temperature and relative
humidity fields along the length of the chamber of one
3v ρa µ dt (6)
π −ò∞ (t − τ ) 12
− CH dτ row co-current spray are presented in Fig. 2 for
2d d
adiabatic humidifying procedure.

JAABE vol.1 no.1 March 2002 Bo NI 145

One row counter-current spray c dv c dρ a (8)
+ 4ShDv (c wall − c ) − −
dx v dx ρ a dx
Similarly replacement will conducted to the energy
conservation equation. It gives
dTa ni Lvap é 3rd ,i Dv x ù
=å 4πrd , i Dv Sh(cs , i − c ) exp ê− ú
ρ ëê (bi − rd ,i ) U x ,i ûú
3
dx i C vU
C p , av a x,i

air ′
n j Lvap é ù
4πrd , j Dv Sh(cs , j − c ) exp ê−
3rd , j Dv x
B +å ú
C p , av ρ a vU x , j êë (b j − rd , j ) U x , j úû
3
A j

ni
−å 4πrd ,i λ a Nu (Ta − Td ,i )
x C p ,av ρ a vU x ,i
control volume i

nj
Fig. 3. Direct evaporative air cooler with one row co-current −å 4πrd , j λ a Nu (Ta − Td , j )
j C p ,av ρ a vU x , j
spray
é P ù
+ 4 Lvap ShDv (c wall − c )ê ú
Counter flow spray from one row of nozzles is êë C p ,av ρ aVA úû
characterized by location of the nozzle row which is
é P ù
placed near the exit of the chamber and the direction + 4 Nuλ a (Twall − Ta )ê ú
of the spray which is opposite to the air stream (Fig. 3). êë C p ,av ρ aVA úû
This type of spray is more complex than the parallel c
one. Since the drops move in the opposite direction C p ,avTa + Lvap
ρ a é 1 dv 1 dρ a ù
from the air flow, they suffer great resistance of − ê + ú
movement from the air flow. Some drops undergo a
C p ,av ë v dx ρ a dx û
reversal of their stream-wise velocity component. Lvap ,0 dc (9)
−
Thus, in the control volume, we have drops like A C p ,av ρ a dx
which moves in its initial direction, called forward
moving drops, and drops like B which is at the turning Variation of the temperature in the spray chamber is
point, as well as drops like C which has already determined by latent heat from the forward and
changed its movement direction, called backward backward moving water droplets, sensible heat from
moving drops. The x coordinate is chosen from right the forward and backward moving water droplets,
to left, i.e., x component velocity of forward moving latent heat from the wet surface of the walls, sensible
drops is positive. heat from the wet surface of the walls, variation of
Introduced air encounters, at first, the water droplets sensible heat in moist air and variation of latent heat in
of intermediate states that depend upon the heat and moist air, respectively.
mass transfer process between the upstream drops and The expressions of the evolutions of drop tempera-
downstream air. It then comes into contact, at the ture and drop dimension are the same as those in the
same time, with forward moving and backward case of parallel flow spray.
moving water droplets. In counter flow spray, the droplets start moving
Vapor evaporation is produced by both the forward from the exit of the chamber in the opposite direction
and backward moving drops. Thus, vapor mass flux of the air stream. After some distance, some undergo a
from the water droplets to moist air can be given as: reversal of trajectories and move from left to right.
dmtotal dm forward ,i dmbackward , j (7) The explicit method for parallel flow spray cannot be
= å ni + ånj
dx i dx j dx used and iterations are required. The outlet air
And for the evolution of vapor concentration in condition is assumed first. Calculation is carried out
air, the term “ å ni ”in Eq.(2) will be replaced by for the forward moving drops from the exit to
i
upstream. Criteria of the calculation are the value of
zero for x-component velocity of drops which means
“ å ni + å n j ”, where index “j” represents the
i j
that the drops attain their turning points, and then
downstream calculation begins. Additional complica-
backward moving drops. We have
tion arises from the drops’ reversals which take place
dc n é 3rd ,i Dv x ù
= å i 4πrd ,i D v Sh(c s ,i − c )exp ê− ú at different locations depending upon drop diameter
êë (bi − rd ,i ) U x ,i úû
3
dx i U x ,i v and initial velocity. Some drops which hit the wall and
′ are absorbed by the film covering the wall are
nj é 3rd , j Dv x ù
+å 4πrd , j D v Sh(c s , j − c )exp ê− ú eliminated from the calculation. The calculated inlet
êë (b j − rd , j ) U x, j úû
3
j U x, j v air condition is compared with the actual one. When a
difference is found, a new outlet air condition is
assumed and the calculation is repeated.

146 JAABE vol.1 no.1 March 2002 Bo NI

 35
Experimental Results
30
Our purpose is to study parametrically the perform-
25
ance of an air washer used in air-conditioning systems on
Ta (oC)

20
the one hand, and on the other, to compare the experi-
15
mental results to those of numerical simulation.
10
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
x (m)
1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8
Experimental setup
100 The Experiment is conducted in a well installed
90 test-bed, specially built for the direct evaporative air
80 cooler, schematically shown in Fig. 5. It consists of
HR (% )

70
60
50
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
x (m)
Fig. 4. Temperature and humidity profiles in the spray chamber
with one row counter-current spray
Fig. 4 shows present temperature and relative
humidity profiles obtained from the numerical
solution. The straight line segment indicates that air
temperature or relative humidity has not yet changed,
i.e. the procedure of heat and mass transfer has not yet
happened to the air. This means there are no water
drops in that part. The exchange of heat and mass
between the two phases takes place only within the
zone near the exit. Compared with the relevant results
of the co-current spray (Fig. 2), a great difference is
found in the profiles’ form, unless the final values of
the temperature and relative humidity are at the outlet.
The counter flow spray needs less space than the
parallel one.
three parts:
(1). Air pre-treatment section, composed of a
coil heater, two vapor humidifiers, and an electric
1.4 1.6 1.8
heater, which create the air state needed for the
following experimental study.
(2). Test section, consisting of a spray chamber
of 1m×1m×4.5m and a coil cooler, allows realization
of the investigation of heat and mass transfer in such a
direct evaporative system.
(3). The water circuit is composed of two refrig-
erators and two exchangers which allow the water
temperature to change from 9°C to 30°C, as well as
two pumps which have spray pressure varying from
105Pa to 5×105Pa.
Air flow first passes the pre-treatment section and
then enters into the spray chamber where it undergoes
change of temperature or humidity which depends on
the temperature of the sprayed water. If the sprayed
water temperature is either higher than the air wet-
bulb temperature, or between the wet-bulb tempera-
ture and dew-point temperature, or lower than the air
dew-point temperature, the air undergoes a treatment

filter coil heater vapor humidifier electrical heater

prtreatment section
Pre-treatment section Pm

outlet of air cooler

coil cooler eliminator

inlet of air
inlet of air Ta,sortie
a,out, T ,T
s,out
s,sortie
Ta,entrée
Ta,in,, TTs,in
s,entrée

ventilator pump
spray chamber
settling chamber spray pipe

from water tank

to water tank

Fig. 5. Test-bed of direct evaporating system

JAABE vol.1 no.1 March 2002 Bo NI 147

procedure of heating and humidifying, or cooling and
humidifying, or is cooled and dehumidified. Consider-
ing that contact time between air and water droplets in
the spray chamber is long enough, the procedure can
be taken as a quasi-stationary one.
Centrifugal spray nozzles of CARRIER Co. with an
outlet orifice of 4mm are used. Its flow rate (kg/s) can
be determined by the following relation with spray
pressure (Pa):
w = 2.23 × 10 −4 Pspray
0.471
(10)
The experiments indicate that the values of the non-
dimensional drop diameter, normalized by volume
mean diameter, varies from 0 to 2.5 (Kachhwaha,
1999). The upper-limit equation is adopted to describe
drop size distribution. The joint drop size distribution
is separately integrated over a non-diameter range of
0-0.5, 0.5-1.0, 1.0-1.5, 1.5-2.0 and 2.0-2.5. This
integration yields the number fraction of drops for five
dimensionless diameters, namely, 0.25, 0.75, 1.25,
1.75 and 2.25.
Another important parameter concerning drops is
the initial velocity distribution which can be deter-
mined with MEP. Sellens and Brzustowski (1999)
suggest that a mean velocity as a function of drop size
should be a sufficient initial condition for spray
modeling, as the appropriate distribution of velocity
will develop quickly under the influence of the gas
flow field. Whatever the initial droplet velocity
distribution, a substantial part of its identity is lost
over a distance which may be much shorter than the
length of the duct. Thus the velocity distribution in the
spray chamber depends much more strongly on the
nature of the air flow field than on the characteristics
of the initial velocity distribution. We choose a mean
initial velocity for different size drops.
The air velocity was measured downstream of the
drift eliminator with three Pitot tubes. The inlet and
outlet air temperatures and relative humidities are
measured with two pairs of shielded RTDs. For each
run, the velocity is gathered at nine locations across
the section of the duct. The average of these values is
used for adjusting the rotation speed of the ventilator
to obtain pre-selected value.
Regarding water, the temperature of sprayed water
and that of water in the basin are measured by
thermocouples. Water flow rate is measured with a
turbo flow meter.
Experimental results
The experiments are carried out in the case of one
row parallel flow spray and one row counter flow
spray respectively, for the air adiabatic humidifying
procedure which can be realized by sprayed water the
temperature of which is the same as the wet-bulb
temperature of treated air. In engineering applications,
148 JAABE vol.1 no.1 March 2002
the performance of such a system is quantified by
humidity efficiency defined as follows for the air
adiabatic humidifying procedure.
Humidity Efficiency = 1 − Ta , 2 − Tw (11)
Ta ,1 − Tw
It is influenced by the air velocity (V), water/air
ratio (µ) and nozzle density (n) (Ni, 2001). Three air
velocities: 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0m/s, two nozzle densities:
14 and 17/m2 and a range of µ from 0.2 to 0.7 have
been studied. The experimental results are summa-
rized in Fig. 6 (a and b), where solid lines represent
the parallel flow spray, indicated by “C” while the
dash lines correspond to the counter flow spray,
marked by “P”. Similar results can be observed for
the two kinds of spray: the humidifying efficiency
increases with air velocity (V) and water/air ratio (µ),
but decreases with nozzle density (n). Moreover, for
V=2.0m/s, the parallel flow spray is more efficient
than the counter one; while for V=2.5m/s and
V=3.0m/s, the value of the humidity efficiency of the
counter current spray is smaller at the beginning and
then becomes greater than that of the parallel with the
increase of µ.
The comparison between the experimental results
and numerical simulation is carried out on outlet air
parameters, namely, outlet air temperature and outlet
relative humidity, which are more important in the air-
conditioning system. Based upon the models
developed above, the numerical simulations are
conducted with the same configurations as those of the
relative experiments. The comparisons of the outlet air
temperatures for the two types of spray are presented
in Fig. 7 (a and b). Good agreements are found,
especially for the co-current spray. As for outlet air
relative humidity, the predicted values are plotted
against experimental results in Fig. 8 (a and b). With a
maximum error of 10%, the predicted values are
always a little greater than the experiments, It seems
that the simulations have overestimated the humidify-
ing procedure of air. However, they give the similar
evolution trend of outlet air relative to humidity as the
experimentation does. Moreover, the difference
between the two methods reduces with the increase of
water/air ratio (µ).
Bo NI
 0,9 1

0,8 0,9

Hum idifying efficiency

Humidifying efficiency

0,8
0,7
0,7
0,6
V=2.0m/ s-P 0,6 V=2.0m/s-P
0,5 V=2.5m/ s-P
V=2.5m/s-P
0,5 V=3.0m/s-P
V=3.0m/ s-P
0,4 V=2.0m/ s-C 0,4
V=2.0m/s-C
V=2.5m/s-C
V=2.5m/ s-C
0,3 0,3 V=3.0m/s-C
V=3.0m/ s-C

0,2 0,2
0,2 0,3 0,4 0,5 0,6 0,3 0,4 0,5 0,6 0,7
µ µ

(a) n=14/m2 (b) n=17/m2

Fig. 6. Experimental results of Humidifying efficiency

30 30

28 28 exp
exp
num
num 26
Ta,2 /°C

26
Ta,2 /°C

24 24

22 22

20 20
0,3 0,35 0,4 0,45 0,5 0,4 0,45 0,5 0,55 0,6

µ µ

(a) one row co-current spray (b) one row counter-current spray
Fig. 7. Comparison of experimental and numerical results of outlet air temperature

100 100

90 90
RHa,2 (%)

RHa,2 (%)

80 80
exp exp
70 num 70 num

60 60
0,3 0,35 0,4 0,45 0,5 0,3 0,35 0,4 0,45 0,5
µ µ

(a) one row co-current spray (b) one row counter-current spray
Fig. 8. Comparison of experimental and numerical results of outlet relative humidity

JAABE vol.1 no.1 March 2002 Bo NI 149

Conclusion 7) Stergele J., Prommersberger K., Willmann M. and Witting S.
The main objective of the present work is to de- (1999) Experimental and theoretical study of one- and two-
component droplet vaporization in a high pressure environment, Int.
velop a set of numerical models for estimation of heat J. Heat Mass Transfer, 42, 2683-2694.
and mass transfer between sprayed water droplets and 8) Li X., Chin L. P., Tankin R. S., Jackson T., Stutrud J. and Switzer G.
air stream in a direct evaporative air cooler used in air- (1991) Comparison between experiments and predictions based on
conditioning systems in textile mills. Based upon the maximum entropy for spray from a pressure atomizer. Combustion
theoretical analysis of the evaporative phenomenon of Flame, 86, 73-89.
9) Wong S. C. and Chang J. C. (1992) Evaporation of non-dilute and
a water droplet in a finite quantity air stream and dilute monodisperse droplet clouds. Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer,
modeling of an air treatment system with water drops 35(10), 2403-2411.
sprayed by either parallel or counter measure, we have 10) Ghiaasiaan S. M. and Luo D. (1994) Transient mass transfer at the
realized numerical simulation of an evaporative air surface of an evaporating stationary droplet. Int. J. Heat Mass
cooler for an air adiabatic humidifying procedure. The Transfer, 37(3) 461-468.
11) Ni B., Numerical Method of Heat and Mass Transfer in Air
fields of temperature and relative humidity in the Washer—1. Mathematical Solution for a droplet evaporating in
spray chamber, as well as the trajectories of sprayed finite surrounding airstream, Journal of China textile University,
drops have been obtained. They show that the fields of 1999, 15(4), p.101-104.
temperature and relative humidity in the spray 12) Kachhwaha S. S., Dhar P. L. and Kale S. R., Experimental studies
and numerical simulation of evaporative cooling of air with a water
chamber are completely different for the one-row
spray—1. Horizontal parallel flow, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer, 1998,
parallel flow spray from those for one-row counter 41(2) p.447-464.
flow spray due to the different dynamic behavior of 13) Sellens R.W. and Brzustowski T.A., A Simplified Prediction of
water droplets in the two cases. However, their values Droplet Velocity Distributions in a Spray, COMBUSTION AND
at the exit are similar. FLAME, Vol.65, p.273-279.
14) Ni B., ETUDE DES DISPOSITIFS DE CLIMATISATION PAR
A series of quantitative experiments on system
EVAPORATION DIRECTE, Thèse de doctorat soutenue à
performance and its influence factors have been l’Université de Poitiers, février 2001.
conducted. The experimental results indicate that the
increase of air velocity and water/air ratio or the
decrease of nozzle density are favorable for system
performance. We find also that for V=2.0m/s, the
parallel flow spray is more efficient than the counter
one; while for V=2.5m/s and V=3.0m/s, the value of
the humidity efficiency of the counter is smaller at the
beginning and then becomes greater than that of the
parallel with the development of µ.
Finally, we compare the experimental results with
relevant numerical simulation by means of outlet air
temperature and relative humidity. Good agreements
have been fount for outlet air temperature while a
maximum error of 8% has been observed for relative
air humidity. Nevertheless, both the experiment and
simulation give the same evolution trend of relative
humidity with the increase of water/air ratio.

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