EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF INDIRECT EVAPORATIVE COOLER USING CLAY PIPE

The aim of the experimental study is to investigate the performance of indirect evaporator cooler in hot and humid regions. A novel approach is implemented in the cooler using clay pipe with different orientation as aligned and staggered position for potential and feasibility study. The clay pipe is the ceramic material  where the water filled inside the tube  and  due to the property of porosity,  the  water comes outer surface of the tube and contact with the air passing  over  the tube and air get cooled. A test rig was designed and fabricated to collect experimental data. The clay pipes were arranged in aligned and staggered position. In our study heat transfer was analyzed with various air velocity of 1 m/s to 5 m/s. The air temperature, relative humidity, pressure drop and water evaporation rate were measured and the performance of the evaporative cooler was evaluated. The experimental results were compared with mathematical values. The analysis of the data indicated that cooling effectiveness improve with decrease of air velocity at staggered position. It was shown that staggered position has the higher performance (53%) at 5 m/s air velocity in comparison with aligned position. The experimental of heat and mass transfer coefficients were compared with Colburn heat and mass transfer group. The test results were within the limit of 20% of mathematical values.