Experimental study on a moisture-conducting fiber-assisted tubular indirect evaporative cooler

Indirect evaporative cooling (IEC) is sustainable and energy-efficient for air cooling. The tubular indirect evaporative cooler (TIEC) is widely used because of its stable and efficient cooling efficiency. However, the conventional TIEC has problems such as poor wetting performance of the wet channel surface and high spray water flow rate. Therefore, this study proposes a novel TIEC based on moisture-conducting fiber to improve the distribution of water film outside the tube by taking the advantage of the characteristics of moisture-conducting fiber. Firstly, the moisture conductivity of different fiber materials is tested to select the moisture-conducting fiber for TIEC. Secondly, the performance of TIEC based on moisture-conducting fiber is experimentally inves-tigated under various working conditions and configurations to obtain the TIEC configuration scheme with a relatively optimal performance. The results show that Coolmax moisture-conductive fiber is the best selection for TIEC applications because of its excellent ability to induce moisture transport and diffusion. The overall per-formance of the configuration scheme of TIEC based on moisture-conducting fiber supplemented with inter-mittent spraying strategy is relatively optimal. The proposed moisture-conducting fiber-assisted TIEC is able to enhance water migration and diffusion, thus improving the wetting performance, saving water and enhancing the cooling efficiency.