International Journal of Research in Advent Technology, Vol.4, No.

4, April 2016
E-ISSN: 2321-9637
Available online at www.ijrat.org

Design and Analysis of Regenerative Air Cooler

Mr. S.N Tripathy1, Vicky Verma2, Abhishek Kumar3, Sidharth kumar4
Associate Professor 1, student 2, 3, 4
, Dept. Of Mechanical Engineering, GIET, Gunupur, Odisha, India
Email: [email protected],[email protected]

Abstract- Regenerative air cooler is a device which is capable of controlling humidity as well as temperature
within a confined area. The main motive is to restrict the amount of water droplets mixing with the output air,
which is the main reason of moisture generation. So by this project we are performing the same task to our best.
Although a lot of modification is required to launch this device uniformly but then also we have done our best
job to present it as a model .We have used blower, a motor, a water pad, a pump, a water tank and a heat
exchanger in this cooler.1 blower is used to throw the air outside and another is used to suck the air and send it at
heat exchanger. A motor is used to rotate the blowers. A water pad is being used to cool the air air Furthermore a
tank is for storage and a pump is for transmission of water. Regenerative air cooler is a suck the air and send it at
heat exchanger. A motor is used to rotate the blowers. A water pad is being used to cool device which is capable
of controlling humidity as well as temperature within a confined area.

Index Terms- Heat Exchanger, water tank , motor, water pad, pump, blower.

of this device with respect to an air conditioner.

1 INTRODUCTION There are several places of application for
regenerative air cooler. Indian industries are often
This project involve making a regenerative air unable to provide their workers with proper work
cooler that would enable the user to control environment during summers because of the
temperature as well as humidity of the incoming prohibitive expense incurred in getting their work
air .This imparts properties similar to that of an units air-conditioned.
AC, except that this device is based on the
evaporative cooling principle of desert cooler. Traditional desert coolers do not quite solve the
This entails less cost of the device. The principle purpose of cooling a big hall size work place.
objective is to make the performance of this Regenerative air cooler is an affordable and
device as possible to that of an air conditioner. effective solution to this problem. It uses a blower
The device employs the normal components used in place of the fan of desert cooler and hence its
in desert cooler such as pump, water pads, water electricity consumption is not too larger than that
basin in addition to heat exchanger and blower. of a cooler. The performance of regenerative air
The blower used in this model provides the cooler is much superior to that of a desert cooler,
draught of cool air into the room with the inlet air as will be confirmed by the design calculations
undergoing cooling blows a part of this cool air and demonstrated. There are prospects of
into the heat exchanger. The cooling air being improving the efficiency of regenerative air
passed into the heat exchanger flows through a cooler still further by improving the design of
water pad, since for this air temperature reduction heat exchanger. Most of these modifications can
is the only concern. This air will be thrown into be implemented in a cost effective manner,
the atmosphere after providing cooling action in without resorting to the costly alternative of using
heat exchanger. This removes the concern of a costly copper heat exchanger.
controlling humidity in this stream of air.
2 LITERATURE RIVIEW
The cooling action of the heat exchanger keeps
the specific humidity of the incoming air constant. 2.1 A General Theory of Wet Surface Heat
This cooling is helpful in reducing the moisture Exchangers and its Application to
content of the final exiting air because cool air Regenerative Evaporative Coolinig
absorbs comparatively lesser moisture. Since the
cooing in the heat exchanger is directly dependent I.L Maclaine-cross [1] ,suggested that wet surface
on the temp of the cooling fluid (air), the moisture heat exchangers such as cooling towers and wet
content of the final air can be controlled to some plate heat exchangers are important in air
extent by greater cooling in the heat exchanger conditioning. A linear approximate model of wet
phase. surface heat exchangers is proposed. The
equations of the model are rearranged, enabling
Hence the temp control and moisture control are solutions for wet bulb depression and wet bulb
interlinked with one another. This is the drawback temperature to be obtained independently, by

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 International Journal of Research in Advent Technology, Vol.4, No.4, April 2016
E-ISSN: 2321-9637
Available online at www.ijrat.org
analogy from published solutions for dry bulb trapped oil, carbon particles, and condensed liquid
temperature in dry surface heat exchangers. water and removes the moisture from the desiccant.
Performance predictions by this method for a
cross flow cooling tower are found to agree with 2.4 Desiccant cooling air conditioning
those from a prevous finite difference solution.
Published performance measurements for a R.Z Wang [4] ,suggested that the principles underlying
crossflow wet plate heat exchanger are lower than the operation of desiccant cooling systems are recalled
predicted by the method possibly due to poor and their actual technological applications are
wetting or excessive water flow. Excellent discussed. Through a literature review, the feasibility
performance is predicted for a proposed of the desiccant cooling in different climates is proven
regenerative evaporative cooler using such an and the advantages it can offer in terms energy and
exchanger. cost savings are underscored. Some commented
examples are presented to illustrate how the desiccant
2.2 Experimental study of a counter flow cooling can be a perfective supplement to other
regenerative evaporative cooler with finned cooling systems such as traditional vapour
channels compression air conditioning system, the evaporative
cooling, and the chilled-ceiling radiant cooling. It is
Dae-Young Lee [2] ,suggested that a regenerative notably shown that the desiccant materials, when
evaporative cooler has been fabricated and tested for associated with evaporative cooling or chilled-ceiling
the performance evaluation. The regenerative radiant cooling, can render them applicable under a
evaporative cooler is a kind of the indirect evaporative diversity of climatic conditions.
cooler comprised of multiple pairs of dry and wet
channels. The air flowing through the dry channels is 2.5 Modelling of indirect evaporative air coolers
cooled without any change in the humidity and at the
outlet of the dry channel a part of air is redirected to P.J Erens and A.A Dreyer [5] ,suggested that the
the wet channel where the evaporative cooling takes modelling of indirect evaporative air coolers is
place. The regenerative evaporative cooler fabricated discussed and three calculation models are described.
in this study consists of the multiple pairs of finned Sample calculations show that the optimum shape of
channels in counter flow arrangement. The fins and the cooler unit would result in a primary to secondary
heat transfer plates were made of aluminum and air velocity ratio of about 1.4, assuming that the
brazed for good thermal connection. Thin porous layer primary and the secondary air mass flow rates are the
coating was applied tothe internal surface of the wet same and that the same plate spacings are used on the
channel to improve surface wettability. The primary and secondary sides. In conclusion it is found
regenerative evaporative cooler was placed in a that the simplified model gives good results and is
climate chamber and tested at various operation recommended for the evaluation of smaller systems
condition. and for initial design purposes while the more
sophisticated methods should be used for more
The cooling performance is found greatly influenced accurate performance prediction.
by the evaporative water flow rate. To improve the
cooling performance, the evaporative water flow rate 3 WORKING PRINCIPLE:
needs to be minimized as far as the even distribution 3.1 Principle Working of Regenerative Air Cooler
of the evaporative water is secured. At the inlet The working of regenerative air cooler can
condition of 32 °C and 50% RH, the outlet be understood through the following
temperature was measured at 22 °C which is well diagram depicting the flow of air within the
below the inlet wet-bulb temperature of 23.7 °C. device

2.3 Flow reversing regenerative air dryer

Arthur R.Grix [3] ,suggested that a flow-reversing,

regenerative, desiccant air dryer system absorbs
moisture, oil droplets, and carbon particles from the
incoming air during compression in a compressed air
system. Once sufficient air pressure has been attained
in an air pressure reservoir, control valves direct the
flow of atmospheric-pressure air, heated by passing
through the warm compressor cylinder, in a reverse
direction through the air dryer. The reverse flow of
heated, atmospheric pressure air both purges the

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 International Journal of Research in Advent Technology, Vol.4, No.4, April 2016
E-ISSN: 2321-9637
Available online at www.ijrat.org

4. EQUATIONS AND CALCULATION:

4.1 Calculation for Blower

Ambient air
Entering Air velocity, in=6.62 m/sec
Inlet area, Ain=П/4(.24^2) ……Eq(1)
Cooled air
Ain=.045 m2
Q=Ain×vin …………………...Eq(2)

= 0.297 m3/sec.

= 17.874 m3/min.

by applying bernaulli’s equation

Q=CONST
Q= .297 m3/sec=17.874 m3/min
Outlet area, Aout= П/4(.32^2)= .0803 m2 ……Eq(3)
Exit air velocity (air to room), Vout=Q/A=.297/.0803=
3.72 m/sec …………………….Eq(4)
NAMING 4.2 Calculation for Water Pad
1 – Air Blower DBT1=38°C
2 – Cooling Pad WBT1=21°C
3 – Water Distributer RH1=20%
4 – Water collecting tank H1=60.25 KJ/Kg of air
5 – Heat Exchanger Spe. Vol, Vs1=.89 m3/Kg
6 – Circulating pump for Direct cooling DBT2=36.5°C
7 – Circulating pump for heat exchanger WBT2=27°C
RH2=50%
3.2 Air Circulation Process H2=85 KJ/Kg of air
SPE. VOL, Vs2=.91 m3/Kg
The ambient air is pulled into the cooler due to Mass of Air Supplied
the suction effect creating by rotating blower. The ma=Q/Vs = 17.874/.91 = 19.64 Kg/min
incoming air first flow through the heat exchanger Ma=.327 Kg/sec ……..…….Eq(5)
where it undergoes first stage of cooling. Then it
flows through the wetted water pad , undergoing 4.3 Calculation for Heat Exchanger
evaporative cooling in the process. A portion of TH1=38°C
this evaporative cooled air flows out of the cooler, TH2=?
while the blower blows the remaining portion to TC1=36.5°C
the atmosphere. This causes the air to loose its TC2=?
kinetic energy and acquires greater static pressure. Capacity rate of air, (C) min=ma
This air then flows across water pad for a second
time undergoing further evaporative cooling. It
then flows through the heat exchanger and …………..Eq(6)
exchange heat with the atmospheric air. The
temperature of the ambient air decrease and flows
U= …………………..Eq(7)
across the water pad, undergoing evaporative
H=40, l=.0005, K for Al =205
cooling in this process then blower blow into the
U= 1/(2/40)+(.0005/205) = 39.996
room with controlled relative humidity .The
A= 6×2 Пrh =.0603
higher pressure of this air sustains the forward
UA=39.996×.0603=2.411
motion of this air through the heat exchanger.
This stream acts as the cooling stream in the heat
exchanger, cooling the incoming stream of air.
After cooling, this stream gets heated and is
rejected into the atmosphere.

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 International Journal of Research in Advent Technology, Vol.4, No.4, April 2016
E-ISSN: 2321-9637
Available online at www.ijrat.org
=10.05 5.1.2 R.H.S VIEW

……….Eq(8)

10.0 10.0 10.05

ε=.526
TH1=38°C
TH2=?
TC1=36.5°C
TC2=?

ε = …………..Eq(9)

(38-36.5) ε =38- TH2

(38-36.5) ε =38- TH2
1.5× .526= 38- TH2
0.789 = 38- TH2
5.1.3 L.H.S VIEW
TH2 =37.211 °C
0.789 = TC2-36.5
TC2=37.289°C
Temp. Of atm air, TH1=38°C
Temp. Of treated atm air, TH2=37.211°C
Temp. Of cooled air from water pad, TC1=36.5°C
Temp. Of exit air, TC2=37.289°C

5. FIGURES, TABLES AND PHOTOGRAPHS:

5.1 Design of Regenerative air cooler using catia
software
5.1.1 TOP VIEW

5. Pump for Heat

1. Outgoing air from Blower Exchanger

2. Blower 6. Water Tank

3. Heat Exchanger 7. Water Pad

4. Pump For Direct Cooling

5.2 Tabulation

5.2.1 Final results of this experiment is as follow:-

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 International Journal of Research in Advent Technology, Vol.4, No.4, April 2016
E-ISSN: 2321-9637
Available online at www.ijrat.org
5.2.2The range of the results of this experiment is
as follows:-
0.428 66.71 80.25 23.81

Temperatur Humidity 0.51 68.40 84.52 26.38

e (C) (RH %)
6.2 variation of COP with mass flow rate
Ambient
air 36-40 20-25
Air flow COP of COP of %
Exit air 50-60 rate(kg/sec.) direct regenerative increase
33-37
evaporative air cooler in COP
5.3
cooler
Photo of Regenerative Air Cooler:-
0.327 4.62 5.96 20.44

Temperature Humidity 0.428 7.76 9.85 23.81

(C) (RH %)
0.51 9.21 12.37 26.38
Ambient air 38 20

Exit air(air to
room) 36.5 50 6.3 Graphs:-

Graph no. 1: Variation of

6. RESULTS AND GRAPHS:- efficiency with Air Flow
Rate.
6.1 Variation of effeciecy with mass flow rate

Efficiency Efficiency of %
Air flow of direct regenerative increase
rate(kg/sec.) evaporative air in
cooler(in cooler(in efficiency
%) %)

0.327 60.42 75.72 20.44

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 International Journal of Research in Advent Technology, Vol.4, No.4, April 2016
E-ISSN: 2321-9637
Available online at www.ijrat.org

Graph no. 2: Variation of

COP with Air flow rate

7. CONCLUSION

It may be concluded that there is considerable

improvement inefficiency and COP (20-27 %) of
direct evaporative cooler with regenerative heat
exchanger. Percentage increase in efficiency is almost
same for each flow rates. The cost comparison shows
that there is slight increase in cost because of an
additional pump and a heat exchanger but increase in
cooling efficiency is substantial. Thus regenerative
evaporative cooler is advantageous for providing more
cooling compared to an ordinary direct evaporative
cooler, which can make the cooler more useful for
providing thermal comfort in residential and
commercial buildings. It may also attract more people
for maximum utilization of such a low energy
consuming device leading to energy conservation.

REFERENCES:

[1] I.L Maclaine-Cross and P.Barks “A general

Theory of Wet Surface Heat Exchanger and its
Application to Regenerative Evaporative cooling”
journal of Heat Exchanger,vol 103,pp 579-
585,1981.
[2] Dae-Young Lee “ Experimental Study of a counter
flow regenerative evaporative cooler with finned
channels” journal of Heat and Mass transfer,vol
65,pp,173-179,2013.
[3] Arthur R.Grix “Flow reversing regenerative dir
dryer” journal of regenerative dryer,vol 23,pp 189-
196,2006.
[4] R.Z Wang “Deciccant cooling air conditioning”
Energy,vol 104,pp,778-791,2012.
[5] P.J Erens and A.A Dreyer “Modelling of indirect
evaporative air cooler” journal of evaporative air
cooler,vol 52,pp,179-187.

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