• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.732-740
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• 2019

Evaporative humidification using a humidifying element is widely used for humidification of a building or a data center. The performance of a humidifying element is commonly expressed as humidification efficiency, which is used independent of air temperature, humidity and water temperature. In this study, a series of tests were conducted at two air conditions (data center and commercial building) using two different humidifying elements (cellulose/PET and Glasdek) changing the frontal air velocity and water temperature. Results showed that the measured humidification efficiency was dependent on the air condition and water temperature. In fact, even dehumidification occurred at the inlet of the humidifying element at the air condition of commercial building. The reason was due to the inlet water temperature, which was lower than the dew point air temperature. As the difference between the inlet water and the dew point air temperature increased, the humidification efficiency decreased. This suggest that proper thermal model should account for the inlet region, where the amount of moisture transfer may be different from the other part of the humidification element. A simple analysis on the thermal performance of the cellulose/PET humidification element showed that the Sherwood number was adequately predicted, whereas the friction factor was ovepredicted, probably due to the simplification of the channel geometry and the neglection of the water film on the element surface.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.11
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• pp.326-331
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• 2018

Evaporative humidification using a humidifying element is used widely for the humidification of a building or a data center. The performance of a humidifying element is commonly expressed as the humidification efficiency, which is assumed to be independent of the air temperature or humidity. To verify this assumption, a series of tests were conducted under two air conditions - data center ($25^{\circ}C$ DBT, $15^{\circ}C$ WBT) and commercial building ($35^{\circ}C$ DBT, $21^{\circ}C$ WBT) - using humidifying elements made from cellulose/PET and changing the frontal air velocity from 1.0 m/s to 4.5 m/s. Three samples having a 100 mm, 200 mm, or 300 mm depth were tested. The results showed that the humidification efficiency is dependent on the air condition. Indeed, even dehumidification occurred at the inlet of the humidifying element at the air condition of commercial building. This suggests that a proper thermal model should account for the inlet area, where the amount of moisture transfer may be different from the other part of the humidification element. As the depth of the element increased from 100 mm to 200 mm, the humidification efficiency increased by 29%. With further increases to 300 mm, it increased by 42%. On the other hand, the pressure drop also increased by 47% and 86%.