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Application of Psychrometrics to Heating and Cooling

There are several cases of interest, which we will consider.


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First, we can heat or
cool the air without changing the moisture content of the air. We could heat with
humidification, or cool with dehumidification. We can use evaporative cooling, adiabatic
mixing of airstreams, and will look at cooling tower processes. Humidification means
that we are adding moisture content to the air, and dehumidification means that we are
removing moisture content from the air.
1. Heating and Cooling
Simple heating and cooling simply involve changing the dry bulb temperature
of the moist air without changing the moisture content. The humidity ratio
remains unchanged, and so we use a horiontal line on the psychrometric
chart to represent this process. This provides no control over the relative
humidity and may produce conditions that are uncomfortable. !eating will
result in lower relative humidity and cooling will result in a higher one.
2. Cooling with Dehumidification
We can use dehumidification to get rid of some of the moisture in the air,
which will lower the relative humidity. This can be accomplished by lowering
the air temperature below the dew point and letting some of the moisture
condense out. Typically the moisture condenses on the outside of the
refrigerant tubing. This process is assumed to occur as simple cooling first
and then condensation. While the moisture is condensing the air is assumed to
remain saturated. The air is assumed to leave the cooling section at the final
dew"point temperature. The process as seen on the psychrometric chart is
shown below.
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#lack, W.$. and !artley %.&., Thermodynamics, !arper 'ollins, 1(().
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To analye this, first we realie that the mass of the dry air does not
change throughout this process. The water mass does change, however.
The conservation of mass for water gives that*
m m m
a w a

1 1 + , ,

= +
or, because
m m
a a

, 1
= ,
( )
m m
a w

, 1 +
=
-n energy balance gives .no work/
( ) ( )
h m h h m h m h m h m
Q
w a a a w w a + , 1 1 , 1 1 + + , ,

+ = + =

3. Heating with humidification


-dding humidification is often necessary to make a heated space comfortable.
0ne example of humidification is the adiabatic"saturation process, when air is
passed over a moist surface to gain moisture by evaporation. 1n this case the
dry bulb temperature could be increased or decreased, depending on the
temperature of the evaporating water. This analysis is very similar to that
used for the dehumidification and is left to the student .or their textbooks2/.
4. Eaporatie Cooling
!ere the energy removed from the warm air is used to evaporate water. This
method adds moisture to the air stream while cooling it, and so would be
useful in regions where the warm air has a low humidity. This process is
considered to be adiabatic because little heat is lost to the environment.
-gain we can apply conservation of mass of air and water, and conservation
of energy. We find that the mass of water added is 3ust the mass of air times
the difference in humidity ratio .identical to that for a humidifier/. The
difference is that here the water is li4uid and has low enthalpy, therefore not
changing that of the air stream much. Thus, this process is considered
constant enthalpy or constant wet bulb temperature.
!. Adia"atic #i$ing
-ir"conditioning processes often re4uire the mixing of two air streams,
especially in the case where outside fresh air is mixed with the return air in the
system. The two streams are assumed to have different dry bulb temperatures
and different humidity ratios. 5sually this mixing is adiabatic with regard to
heat transfer to the surroundings.
We can find the conditions of the mixed air stream by again looking at a mass
balance of the air and water. For the air*
+
m m m
a a a

, + 1
= +
and for the water*
m m m
a a a

, , + + 1 1

= +
We can eliminate ma

, to get*
m m
m m
a a
a a


+ 1
+ + 1 1
,
+
+
=

We can also obtain*


h h
h h
m
m
a
a
+ 1
+ ,
,
1

6ote that condensation can occur sometimes when the two streams are mixed.
%. &et Cooling 'ower
- wet"cooling tower is a way of cooling down water that has been used to
remove heat, such as in a power plant. This might be water that must be
returned to a river or lake, or perhaps the water must be reused. #elow is a
schematic of a wet"cooling tower.
The water is cooled by evaporation into the air in the tower. The air
continuously flows upward through the tower. Some water is carried off by
the air stream .from evaporation/ and must be replaced.
,
!ere, the mass of the air is unchanged as is passes through the tower. The
mass of the condenser water leaving is usually the same as at the entrance.
That is*
m m m
w

= =
7 ,
For the water mass balance we can write*
m m m m m
a a

7 +
+
1 1 ) ,
+ = + +

-nd so we can find out the rate at which the water evaporates*
( )
m m
a

1 + )
=
7

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