Performance investigation of an evaporative pre-cooled air-conditioning system in tropics

A hybrid evaporative pre -cooled air-conditioning system is introduced for tropical climate applications. The indirect evaporative heat exchanger is employed to pre -cool the ambient humid air before passing through the vapor compression system. A computational model has been developed for the evaporative pre -cooling process. We validated the model by comparing the simulated outlet air temperature against experimental data. The validated model is then used to investigate the performance of the indirect evaporative heat exchanger in terms of the air temperature and humidity profiles. The pre -cooling process is able to reduce the product air temperature and condense water in the product channel. Consequently, the hybrid evaporative pre -cooled airconditioning system is able to achieve a potential energy saving due the pre -cooling effect and the improvement of the chiller's efficiency. (C) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.