Energy and environmental implications of a refrigeration cycle are largely conditioned by the choice of condensing system. Conventional solutions transfer heat to water, and recirculated through cooling towers or to atmospheric air through a dry condenser. While the use of cooling towers means less energy consumption due to lower pressure in the condenser, a number of environmental implications are questioning their installation. Mainly, it represents an emission of chemicals or microorganisms to the atmosphere as Legionella. The dry and adiabatic fluid cooler works as a standard fluid dry cooler enhancing the dry cooler’s capacity with adiabatic pre-cooling of the air intake. The ambient dry bulb temperature is reduced as the air passes through an evaporative pad especially designed to humidify and cool the air (Figure.1). The main objective of this study is to experimentally investigate the thermal performance of a dry and adiabatic fluid cooler. With the experimental data, a thermal model will be developed in order to compare the energy implications arising from the replacement of traditional systems (dry condenser and cooling towers) by condensing air coolers with adiabatic pre-cooling.The construction of the prototype has been sponsored by the Regional Government of the Comunidad Valenciana, through the Project GV/2011/072.
The instrumentation used to conduct experimental work has been funded through the Project “Estudio energético de un sistema alternativo para la condensación en ciclos de refrigeración: el aero-refrigerador con preenfriamiento adiabático” from Convocatoria 2009 de Proyectos Bancaja-UMH para grupos precompetitivo