Experimental investigation and numerical validation of total heat exchanger and membrane phenomena

The total heat exchanger is a promising technology used to recover both latent and sensible heat. An experimental setup was built in order to evaluate parametric effects on the total heat exchanger efficiency. Numerically, the physical problem involves a two dimensional model including the momentum, heat and mass transport equations in climate chamber submitted to a fresh air stream. The impact of air flow velocity on the heat and mass transfer distributions are experimentally and numerically established. The results show that the air temperature inside the climate chamber decreases from 19.5 to 17.6 °C when the air flow velocity increases from 0.125 m s−1 to 0.25 m s−1. The surface of membrane has a great impact on the temperature and humidity profiles inside climate chamber when the membrane surface is sufficiently large. Complex phenomena such activation and clogging of membrane are discussed. The variation of membrane surface and/or flow velocity has an important impact on the activation and clogging times.