Air conditioning device with indirect cooling by evaporation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing indirect evaporative cooling devices lack a balance between effectiveness and compactness, and they often require refrigerants that have harmful environmental impacts.
Innovation Solution
An optimized indirect evaporative cooling device with a stack of plates forming alternating dry and wet channels, connected by fluid junctions, and distributed slots for air flow, allowing for efficient cooling and humidification without refrigerants.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If conventional air conditioning devices using refrigerants are used, then cooling effectiveness is achieved, but environmental harm increases due to harmful refrigerants
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts and eliminates the refrigerant component from the cooling system, replacing it with an evaporative cooling mechanism that uses only water. The cooling device achieves cooling effectiveness through evaporation of water on the wet face of the plate, removing harmful refrigerants while maintaining the cooling function.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention changes the fundamental cooling parameter from refrigerant-based phase change to water-based evaporation. By utilizing the evaporation of water on the wet face of the plate, the system achieves cooling without harmful refrigerants, transforming the cooling mechanism from chemical refrigerant compression to physical evaporation cooling.
2Volume of moving object
If indirect evaporative cooling devices are designed to be compact, then device size is reduced, but thermal efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The invention transitions from traditional three-dimensional bulky evaporative coolers to a two-dimensional plate-based structure. The cooling plates with wet and dry faces create efficient heat exchange surfaces in a compact arrangement, achieving high thermal efficiency through increased surface area-to-volume ratio while maintaining a flat, space-saving design.
Solution Approach 2:
The cooling device is segmented into multiple plates with alternating wet and dry faces, creating a stackable modular structure. This segmentation allows for efficient heat exchange pathways while maintaining compact dimensions, as each plate acts as an independent heat exchange unit that can be stacked to achieve desired cooling capacity without increasing overall footprint.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The device achieves effective cooling with reduced environmental impact by maximizing thermal efficiency and compactness through countercurrent air flow and symmetrical channel configurations.
Implementation Method 1
each plate being intended to be cooled under the effect of evaporation of water from the wet face
Implementation Method 2
a ventilation system; each dry channel extends, along a longitudinal axis, between an air inlet, connected to the air intake, and a cold outlet
Data Source
AI summary
An indirect evaporative cooling air-conditioning device, for blowing cooled air into a room, includes an air intake, for collecting air to be cooled; a plurality of plates forming a stack; and a ventilation system. Each plate has a dry face opposite a wet face, which is to be kept wet with water. Each plate is intended to be cooled by water evaporation from the wet face. Two adjacent plates are spaced from each other, along a transverse axis, to form a channel, either dry or wet. A dry channel is delimited by two dry faces of the adjacent plates. A wet channel is delimited by two wet faces of the adjacent plates. Each wet channel includes several wet outlets distributed along a lateral axis, and/or each dry channel includes several air inlets distributed along the lateral axis, which is perpendicular to a longitudinal axis and to the transverse axis.