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Cooling Moist Air - Sensible Cooling

If the temperature on a cooling surface - tC - is above or equal to the dew point temperature - tDP - of the
surrounding air, the air will be cooled without any change in specific humidity. It is the Sensible Heat - the
"temperature heat" - in the air that is removed.
The air cools along a constant specific humidity - x - line as expressed in the Mollier diagram below:

The process is very similar (opposite direction) to the sensible heating process and the heating formulas
can be adapted for calculating changes in enthalpy and temperature.
Note! The specific humidity is constant but the relative humidity will increase.

Dehumidifying Moist Air - Latent Cooling


If the temperature on a cold surface is lower than the dew point temperature - tDP - of the humid air, vapor
in the air condensates on the surface. Latent heat - vapor - is removed from the humid air.
This process can be expressed in the Mollier diagram as below. The air cools in the direction of point C,
which is the intersection point of the cold surface temperature (the cooling surface dew point temperature
or the apparatus dew-point - tADP) and the saturation line.

With a cold surface of unlimited size and a very small amount of air, it would be possible to reach point C.
In the real world a limited surface is never 100% effective and the final state of the cooled and
dehumidified air will be somewhere on the straight line between point A and C - point B.
The amount of condensated vapor will be the difference xA - xB.
Note! This process will decreases the specific humidity and increase the relative humidity.

Contact Factor -
The efficiency of a cooling coil is commonly expressed with the Contact Factor - - and can be
expressed as
= (xA - xB) / (xA - xC)
= (hA - hB) / (hA - hC)
(tA - tB) / (tA - tC)

(1)

where
= Contact Factor
x = specific humidity (kg/kg)
h = enthalpy (kJ/kg)
t = temperature (oC)

Bypass Factor - BPF


The Bypass Factor - BPF - (or BF) is commonly used to express a cooling coils efficiency:
BPF = (hB - hC) / (hA - hC)

= (tB - tC) / (tA - tC)


= (xB - xC) / (xA - xC)

(2)

where
BPF = Bypass Factor (BF)
The relationship between the Contact Factor and the Bypass Factor can be expressed as:
BPF = 1 -

(3)

Heat Flow in a Cooling Coil


The total heat flow rate through the cooling coil can be calculated as:
q = m (hA - hB)

(4)

where
q = heat flow rate (kJ/s, kW)
m = mass flow rate of air (kg/s)
The total heat flow can also be expressed as:
qs = v (hA - hB)

(4a)

where
v = volume flow (m3/s)
= density of air (kg/m3)
Note! The density of air varies with temperature. At 0oC the density is 1.293 kg/m3. At 80oC the density is
1.0 kg/m3.
The total heat flow rate can be split into sensible and latent heat. The sensible heat flow rate can be
expressed as:
qs = m cp (tA - tB)

(4b)

where
cp = 1.01 - specific heat capacity of air (kJ/kg.oC)
The latent heat can be expressed as:
qs = m hwe (xA - xB)

(4c)

where
hwe = 2502 (kJ/kg)

Example - Cooling and Dehumidifying Air


1 m3/s of air at 30oC and relative humidity 60% (A) is cooled down to 15 oC (B). The surface temperature
of the cooling coil is 0oC (C). The density of air at 20oC is 1.205 kg/m3.
Using the Mollier diagram the state of the cooled air (B) is in the intersection between the straight line
between (A) and (C) and the 15oC temperature line.
From the Mollier diagram the enthalpy in (A) is 70 kJ/kg, in (B) 38.5 kJ/kg and in (C) 8.5 kJ/kg.
The Contact Factor can be calculated as:
= ((70 kJ/kg) - (38.5 kJ/kg)) / ((70 kJ/kg) - (8.5 kJ/kg))
= 0.51
The total heat flow can be calculated as:
q = (1 m3/s) (1.205 kg/m3) ((70 kJ/kg) - (38.5 kJ/kg))
= 38 (kJ/s, kW)
The sensible heat flow can be calculated as:
qs = (1 m3/s) (1.205 kg/m3) (1.01 kJ/kg.oC) (30oC - 15oC)
= 18.3 (kW)
According to the Mollier diagram the specific humidity in (A) is 0.016 kg/kg and in (B) 0.0096 kg/kg and
the latent heat flow can be calculated as:
qs = (1 m3/s) (1.205 kg/m3) (2,502 kJ/kg) ((0.016 kg/kg) - (0.0096 kg/kg))
= 19.3 (kW)

Simple coil design methods that work


The fin-and-tube heat exchanger is probably the most common piece of equipment found in
any air-conditioning installation. These heat exchangers are typically referred to as coils
and are designated by the fluids in the tube. So, a chilled water coil is a fin-and-tube heat
exchanger used for cooling air where the coolant is chilled water and the direct expansion
coil is a fin-and-tube evaporator found in a vapour compression cycle.
These two coil types are primarily used to cool air. In most cases, the temperature of the
coolant at the coil inlet is in the order of 6 C and at typical air-conditioning temperatures,
this would result in a coil surface temperature that is below the dew point of the air being
cooled. The consequence of this is that there will be condensation on the coil surface and

this condensate is clearly evident by the water flowing out of the drain pans of many
installations.
Methods to design and select heating coils are based on an overall heat transfer coefficient
multiplied by the appropriate temperature difference. In cooling coils where there is
condensation, the temperature difference is not the correct driving force since the latent
heat of condensation is not accounted for.
There have been different ways of dealing with this shortfall. These include the introduction
of a sensible heat factor to modify the outside film coefficient, use of a log mean enthalpy
difference and the effectiveness method based on a saturation specific heat. In this paper,
we develop the equations and by simulation, illustrate the validity of the effectiveness
method for solving wet surface cooling coils.

The conventional LMTD method


The LMTD method is a well-known way of calculating a heat exchanger size. The idea is that
the heat exchanger has a pre-defined heat transfer coefficient and that the driving force for
heat flow is the temperature difference.
Q = Uo Ao dt
This is the same equation as would be used to calculate heat flow across a wall of known
conductivity. The difference in a heat exchanger is that the temperature of the fluids
changes significantly.
Without going into the details here, it can be shown that the effective temperature
difference for parallel and counter flow configurations can be calculated from the following
equation.
dt = (dti dto) / ln (dti / dto)
Hence the name, log mean temperature difference. In the case of a cross flow and multipass configurations, you would have to apply an additional correction factor.
The problem with the LMTD method is that the fluid leaving conditions must be known in
order to calculate the duty. Clearly, if you know the leaving conditions, then you already
know the duty. This makes the performance calculation of an existing coil an iterative
process. A difficulty that often appears during the course of a simulation is that successive
estimates of the leaving fluid temperatures could result in a negative (dti / dto) and
consequently a program crash.

e-Ntu method
The e-Ntu method is based on the concept of an efficiency rating and is defined by the
following equation.
Q = e Qmax
The maximum duty can be easily determined when you realize that the fluid with the lowest
capacity rate Cmin will have the largest temperature difference. In an ideal heat exchanger,
that is one with an efficiency of 100%, the fluid with the lowest capacity rate will experience
the maximum possible temperature difference or the inlet temperature difference (ITD).
ITD = thi tci

Qmax = Cmin ITD


Now you can see the benefit of this method since it is based on inlet conditions only and the
actual duty is bounded between 0 and Qmax or in other words, an effectiveness of 0 to 1.
It turns out that the effectiveness can be derived for many of the common heat exchanger
configurations. These are well known and published in most heat transfer books in the form
shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Effectiveness of a single pass counter-flow heat-exchanger

For a counter-flow configuration, the effectiveness can be calculated from the following
equation,
e = (1 e

Ntu (1-Cr)

) / (1 Cr e

Ntu (1-Cr)

where the number of transfer units Ntu = Uo Ao/Cmin and the capacity ratio Cr = Cmin/Cmax

Step-by-step simulation
In developing theories, we often make assumptions to simplify the result so it would be
instructive to be able to make a practical comparison.
If we break the heat exchanger into a number of small pieces, it would be possible to
calculate the heat flow at each step without making any assumptions.
Figure 2. Thermal model of dry cooling

At each step, from tai to tao in the thermal model shown in Figure 2, the outside and inside
heat transfer relationships need to be reconciled
dq = ho dAo (ta ts)
dq = Ui dAi (ts tw)
This allows the determination of the surface temperature, ts and consequently the
differential heat flow dq that is summed to get the total heat flow.
Looking at each fluid in turn, it is also possible to calculate the next temperature from
dq = Ca dta and dq = Cw dtw
In a counter flow arrangement, this is an iterative process since in the direction of the
airflow we would have to start with a guess of the leaving water temperature. At the end of
the cycle, the water inlet temperature must be compared with the known inlet water
temperature and the initial guess revised until a solution has been found.

Dealing with condensation


When the surface temperature falls below the dew point temperature of the air, there will be
condensation. This complicates matters since the energy balance must now include the
mass and energy flow of the condensate.
This means that there are two energy equations on the air-side, accounting for sensible and
latent heat.
dqs = ho dAo (ta ts)
dql = hd dAo (Wa Ws) hfg
By summing these two equations, it can be shown that the total energy can be
approximated in terms of an enthalpy potential.
dqt = hd dAo (ha hs)
So, the potential for heat transfer is the enthalpy difference between the moist air and the
enthalpy of saturated air at the surface temperature.

Simulation of a cooling coil with condensation


By incorporating the enthalpy potential, we can now simulate the performance of a cooling
coil with condensate. In Figure 3, we see that the surface is wet and therefore the enthalpy
at the surface is that of saturation air at the surface temperature.
Figure 3. Thermal model of wet cooling coil

In addition to the heat transfer, we can calculate the condensate flow from dm = hd dAo (Wa
Ws) and consequently the absolute humidity at the next step as the simulation proceeds.
The psychrometric chart in figure 4 shows the actual simulated process and the by-pass
model based on the Ntu method.
Figure 4. Psychrometric chart showing simulation and Ntu model

Notice that I have chosen a water supply temperature that would ensure a fully wet coil. In
practice, it is possible that the inlet coil surface temperature could be above the air dew
point and the coil would start out dry. As the air moves through the coil, it would be

exposed to a lower temperature and condensation would start somewhere in the coil. This
complicates the Ntu process since the coil should really be split into a dry and wet portion.
The results of a wet coil model are however close enough not to warrant this precaution. In
the case of a partially wet coil, Braun et al have suggested using the average between the
wet and dry duties.

Problems with the LMTD method


The problem with the LMTD method is that it is only valid for single-phase heat transfer. The
reason is that the driving force is based on a temperature difference.
If your instinct was to consider a log mean enthalpy difference, you would be on the right
track. In fact, there are many references that adopt this approach (Kuehn et al ).
Another approach would be to apply a sensible heat correction factor to the outside film
coefficient. This would give an overall coefficient 1/Uo = SHR/ho + B/Ui. This modification
is based on the air-side duty of dql = (ho Ao dt)/SHR and gives good correlation but does
not always behave well numerically.

Validity of e-Ntu
If the LMTD method doesnt work for a wet coil, why then should the e-Ntu method be any
different? The reason that it does work is that the maximum duty is based on the correct
driving force.
In a wet coil, the maximum duty is
Qmax = ma (hai hswi)
And the duty can be calculated directly from Q = e Qmax
For a wet coil, we now need to find a way to calculate the effectiveness.
If we equate the air and water-side duties
ma (hai - hao) = mw Cpw (twi - two)
and define a saturation specific heat as
Cs = (hswi - hswo) /(twi - two),
we can replace the water temperature difference and re-arrange the energy balance
equation into a form that looks similar to the dry case.
ma Cs (hai - hao) = mw Cpw (hswi - hswo)
By similarity, we can define the air capacity rate as Ca = ma Cs and adopt the effectiveness
method in the same way that we did with a dry process. The definition of the saturation
specific heat has given us this advantage.

Reference e-Ntu Method


The conventional e-Ntu method does work well, but is difficult to program since you need to
determine the maximum and minimum capacity rate in order to calculate the capacity ratio.
In addition, you must base the maximum duty on the fluid with the minimum capacity rate.

So, if for example you change the flow rate of the air, the relative positions of the fluids
need to be revised.
A possibility is to define a reference fluid and use this instead of the minimum capacity rate
fluid. If we select air to be the reference fluid, the duty can be calculated from the following.
Q = e Qair
Qdry = ma Cpa (tai - twi)
Qwet = ma (hai - hswi)
e = (1 e

Ntu (1-Cr)

) / (1 Cr e

Ntu (1-Cr)

Cr = (ma Cs) / (mw Cw)


If there is no condensate, the coil is dry and Cs = Cpm. For a wet coil, we can define Cs based
on the idea of the saturation specific heat.
Cs = (hswo hswi) / (two twi)
An additional useful step is to break up the Ntu into the outside and inside parts and
combining these like parallel heat flow paths.
Ntu = Ntuo / (1 + Cr Ntuo/Ntui)
where Ntuo = ho Ao / (ma Cpa) and Ntui = Ui Ai / (ma Cpw).
By integrating the air-to-surface energy balance, this leads to the definition of a coil bypass
factor, b.
ma dha = hd dAo (ha hs)
b=e

Ntuo

Where from the definition of the bypass factor, the leaving air state can be determined.
b = (hao hadp) / (hai hadp) = (Wao Wadp) / (Wai Wadp)

Comparison of Results
The calculated performance of a particular chilled water coil can now be compared with the
above methods. There are too many variables to give an exhaustive list so I have selected
a coil size and reference condition. Each test is based on the variation of a single parameter

Barometer = 101.325 kPa (sea level)


On coil = 25.0 / 17.0 C (dry bulb and wet bulb temperature)
Coil size = 533 high x 720 mm long x 4 row x 8 fins per inch
Air face velocity = 2.50 m/s
Water inlet temperature = 5.5 C
Water velocity in tube = 1 m/s
Design water temperature difference = 5.0 C
Table 1 Total and Sensible heat (kW) for the different methods

Reference condition

Simulation

Wet e-Ntu

Dry LMTD

18.433 / 14.486

18.369 / 14.402

15.697 / 13.214

High on-coil, 30/20 C

Low water flow, 0.7 l/s

High airflow, 5 m/s

24.469 / 17.980

18.029 / 14.299

22.541 / 19.221

(0.34% error)

(15.8% error)

24.433 / 17.887

19.851 / 15.955

(0.15% error)

(18.8% error)

17.923 / 14.200

15.564 / 13.156

(0.59% error)

(13.7% error)

22.450 / 19.129

20.109 / 18.130

(0.40% error)

(10.7% error)

The results shown are a small set of the range of conditions that were tested. In all cases,
the total duty calculated by the e-Ntu method has proved to be within 0.6% of the
simulated results.
Notice that the standard LMTD method is generally not suitable for calculating the duty of a
wet coil. As the airflow is increased, the coil surface temperature increases and results in
less condensate. As this happens, the errors associated with the LMTD method are reduced.

Conclusion
We have developed the equations of the wet effectiveness method and have shown by
simulation that the results conform to the results of a step-by-step calculation.
By applying the log mean temperature method to the simulated results, it is clear that this
method cannot be applied directly to a coil where condensation takes place.
For computer solution of cooling coils, the e-Ntu method offers a significant advantage over
the LMTD method. This is mainly due to the effectiveness being bounded in the range 0 to
1.
By adopting a reference fluid, it is possible to replace the conventional effectiveness
method. Although not material to the result, it does simplify the computer code since it
removes the need to determine the minimum and maximum capacity rate fluid.

Nomenclature
A
adp

Area, m2
Apparatus dew point, C

C
Capacity rate, kW/K (= m Cp )
Cpm Mean heat capacity of moist air at constant pressure, kJ/kgK
Cpw Heat Capacity of water, kJ/kgK
Cs Saturation specific heat, kJ/kgK
h Moist air enthalpy, kJ/kg
ho Air side film coefficient, W/mK
hd Mass transfer coefficient, kg/ms
hfg Latent heat of evaporation, kJ/kg
m Mass flow, kg/s
Ntu Number of transfer units
Q Overall heat transfer rate, kW
t Temperature, C
U Heat transfer coefficient, W/mK
W Humidity, kg/kg
b Bypass factor
e Effectiveness
d Differential

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