Experimental study of film media used for evaporative pre-cooling of air

• Two film media were experimentally studied in a low-speed wind tunnel.
• Correlations for heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop were developed.
• Cellulose media provide higher cooling efficiency and pressure drop than PVC media.
• Water entrainment of PVC media happens even at relatively low air velocities.

An open-circuit low-speed wind tunnel was used to study the performance of evaporative cooling with cellulose and Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) corrugated media. These two film media were selected as part of a broader investigation on pre-cooling the entering air of natural draft dry cooling towers. The heat and mass transfer and pressure drop across the two media with three thicknesses (i.e., 100, 200 and 300 mm) were experimentally studied in the wind tunnel. The test data were non-dimensionalized and curve fitted to yield a set of correlations. It was found that the pressure drop range of the cellulose media is 1.5–101.7 Pa while the pressure drops of the PVC media are much lower with the range of 0.9–49.2 Pa, depending on the medium thickness, air velocity and water flow rate. The cooling efficiencies of the cellulose media vary from 43% to 90% while the cooling efficiencies of the PVC media are 8% to 65%, depending on the medium thickness and air velocity. The water entrainment off the media was detected by water sensitive papers, and found that the cellulose media have negligible water entrainment under the studied conditions while care must be taken in the use of PVC media as water entrainment happens even at relatively low air velocities.