JP Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

© 2021 Pushpa Publishing House, Prayagraj, India

Volume xx , Number x , 2021, Pages: xx ISSN: 0973-5763

HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER ANALYSIS OF

EVAPORATIVE CONDENSER

V. W. Bhatkar
Marathwada Mitra Mandal’s College of Engineering, Pune, M. S. India
e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

Energy consumption and environmental degradation due to harmful refrigerants are

the major issues with the heating, ventilating, air conditioning, and refrigeration
(HVACR) industries. Vapor compression refrigeration (VCR) systems are used in more
than 80% of the appliances in the world which consumes one third of the total high-grade
energy. A combined flow evaporative condenser (CFEC) is a combination of evaporative
condenser and a cooling tower, thus the coil and fill are providing area for heat transfer
and eliminating the scale-producing dry spots on the coil. The combined flow evaporative
condenser reduces the condensing temperature by 4 °C, energy saving by 12% and
refrigeration capacity increase by 4%. The theoretical heat and mass transfer model
developed is used for predicting the performance of evaporative condenser for various
conditions of wet bulb temperature, spray water flow and air flow.

1. Introduction

Received: xx, 2021; Accepted: xx, 2021

Keywords and phrases: Evaporative condenser, scaling, fill, condensing temperature,
refrigerants, refrigerating capacity
2 V. W. Bhatkar

Condenser is the important component in the HVACR system which

contains 30% of the refrigerant charge. Condensers are classified as air
cooled, water cooled and combination of air and water cooled as evaporative
condensers. Refrigerant condensers used in industries are shell and tube,
shell and coil, tube in tube and brazed plate. Evaporative condensers are
selected on the basis of cooling load, type of refrigerant, quality and
temperature of the available cooling water, amount of water to be circulated,
location and space requirement, operating pressures, cost and maintenance.
Figure 1 shows the working of combined flow evaporative condenser. The
refrigerant vapor enters the coil and rejects heat to the spray water falling
over the coil. The heat absorbed by the water is rejected to the air which is
flowing over the coil by evaporation. Heat transfer from the coil is sensible,
thus the sprayed water is heated and travels over the fill surface where it is
cooled by cross-flow of air.

Figure 1. Combined flow evaporative condenser

As the little evaporation is taking place on the coil, it is protected from un-
favorable effects of scaling and fouling. Also, the spray water does not have
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Heat and Mass Transfer Analysis of Evaporative Condenser
to travel against air flow, pressure head is not required at the spray nozzles
and gravity spray suffices the requirement in combined flow evaporative
condenser. Evaporative condenser reduces water pumping and chemical
treatment associated with cooling tower. Evaporative condenser needed less
coil surface area and air flow to reject the same amount of heat over air
cooled condenser for better coefficient of performance (COP). Qureshi and
Zubair [1] used Engineering Equation Solver (EES) for modelling an
evaporative condensers and coolers. They studied the effect of fouling on the
performance and concluded that effectiveness of the condenser reduces
drastically with the rise in temperature. The driving potential for heat transfer
is condensing temperature and water film temperature. The sensible heat
transfer at the water-air interface occurs because of the temperature gradient
and mass transfer (evaporation) from the water-air interface to the air stream.
The evaporative condenser performance depends on temperature variation,
air flow velocity, water flow rate, refrigerant velocity and tube bundle
configuration. Currently, shell and tube, counter flow evaporative condensers
are used in cold storages, ice plants and dairies. Counter flow evaporating
condensers are advantageous over shell and tube condenser due to lower
condensation temperature, low power consumption, less amount of cooling
water requirement and smaller pump for water circulation, ISHRAE [2].
Combined flow evaporative condenser is able to reduce the condensing
temperature by 4 °C with the energy saving of 12% and the refrigeration
capacity increase by 4%. Table 1 shows the energy saving and refrigerating
capacity increase for evaporation temperature of 0 °C and condenser
temperature varying from 30 °C to 40 °C calculated from the refrigerant
ammonia properties [3]. The water surface area exposed to cooling air
4 V. W. Bhatkar

increases the amount of heat transferred to the surrounding air by conduction,

convection, radiation and evaporation.
Table 1. Compressor energy saving
Te Tc Capacity Power kW/ % saving in % increase
(°C) (°C) kcal/hr kW TR Power/TR/°C Capacity/°C
0 40 194900 49.8 0.77 2.7% 0.9 %
0 35 203700 45.1 0.67 2.8% 0.8 %
0 30 212200 40.3 0.57

The effectiveness of particular splash type of fill is governed by its ability to

form droplets [4]. Centrifugal fans are silent in operation, better than axial
fans for longer life of plants. The dry entering air stream components have
more life as they are isolated from wet environment [5]. In a closed
evaporative cooler, cooling is achieved by spraying water on the tubes,
forming a water film and evaporated by air flowing across the surface [6].
Mizushina et al. [7] used similar approach of Parker and Treybal to solve the
heat and moisture balance equations with the help of computational methods
for smooth and triangular shape tube. Leidenfrost and Korenic [8] studied the
computational methods for cross-flow and counter flow heat exchanger to
determine the exit state of the air and water leaving the condenser. Webb [9]
developed software to predict the performance of the evaporative condenser.
Erens and Dreyer [10] presented a general approach to study the evaporative
coolers. The effect of the relative humidity was analyzed by keeping constant
wet bulb temperature [11]. Komal et. al [12] found that the heat duties for
de-superheating and condensation descends in the order of air-cooled
condenser, water cooled condenser and evaporative condenser. The heat
transfer effect was enhanced by combining nano technology and nano
material in the refrigerant [13]. The mathematical correlations developed by
Valse and Havaldar [14] are useful in the analysis of evaporative condensers.
Langde [15] experimentally found that the refrigeration effect was more the
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Heat and Mass Transfer Analysis of Evaporative Condenser
evaporative condenser than air cooled and water-cooled condensers. Patel
and Ladani [16] studied the scale deposition on the evaporative surfaces to
enhance the performance of condensers. Micro/mini channel condensers
reduces the condensation temperature for performance improvement due to
special geometry and pass arrangement, Ho [17]. The environmentally
friendly refrigerants are used to reduce the degradation due to global
warming potential [18]. An efficient wet pad reduced the temperature of the
air with more than 95% of the wet bulb temperature [19]. The simultaneous
heat and mass transfer analysis was presented in the ASHRAE journal with
the help of Lewis formulation which gives acceptable outcome for most of
the psychrometric processes [20]. An analytical approach for solving the
simultaneous heat and mass transfer for air washer as an evaporative cooler
was presented and validated with the ASHRAE results for air temperature,
air humidity, air flow rate and feed water temperature at inlet and outlet. The
effectiveness of the air conditioning processes is significantly dependant on
the water temperature and the inlet air flow rate [21]. The suction and
pressure type of fans are used in the analysis of different type of evaporative
condensers [22].

2. Mathematical Model for Evaporative Condenser

An arbitrary control volume in the fill section is considered in the
counter flow cooling tower as shown in Figure 2. The refrigerant is rejecting
heat to water and water in turn reject heat to the air thus making the air
saturated with water vapour. The vapour diffuses into the incoming air
holding less vapour concentration and cooled the process fluid. Analytical
analysis of closed-circuit evaporative condenser is completed by Parker and
Treybal [6]. They assumed that the enthalpy of saturated air is linear with
temperature. Leidenfrost and Korenic [8] analysed cross and counter flow
 6 V. W. Bhatkar

finned tube evaporative condenser. The water coming in contact the tube
surface fall down to wet the surface creating water film on the outside tube
surface. Following assumptions are made for solving the governing equations
for the evaporative condenser.
i. The water film temperature is constant throughout the condenser
ii. Water film is very thin and the area exposed on the air side is same as
outside surface area of the tube
iii. The water attached to the tube surface is uniformly distributed for all rows
iv. The Lewis factor is considered as one and the evaporation loss neglected

Figure 2. Control volume of evaporative cooler (a) cross flow (b)

counter flow

Applying conservation of mass and energy equations as follows:

dAa
dim a = hd (imasw − ima ) ...................................................(1)
ma
(ma dim a + mpcppdTp )
dTw = ..............................................(2)
mwcpw
To find the process fluid temperature, Tp, equation is written as:
dAa
dTp = −Ua (Tp − Tw) ...............................................(3)
mpcpp
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Heat and Mass Transfer Analysis of Evaporative Condenser

1  1 Aa Aa 
= + + Rn  ......................................(4)
Ua  hwef Aphp An 
 n 
Considering the water film has a uniform mean temperature, Twm throughout
the cooler, Equation (2) is eliminated, Integrate eq. (1) between imai and imao.
imao = imaswm − (imaswm − imai )exp(− NTUa).............................(5)
Aahd
NTUa = ..................................................................(6)
ma
Integrating Equation (3) between the inlet and outlet process fluid
temperatures:
Tpo = Twm + (Tpi − Twm) exp(− NTUp)..................................(7)

UaAa
NTUp = ...............................................................(8)
mpCpp
The heat transfer rate for the evaporative cooler is written by the following
equation.
Q = ma(imao − imai )  mpcpp(Tpi − Tpo).................................(9)
Putting Equation (5) and (7) into Equation (9) and solving;
ma imaswm − (imaswm − imai ) exp(− NTUa ) − imai 
= mpcpp Tpi − Twm − (Tpi − Twm )  exp(− NTUp )..................(10)

ma (imaswm − imai ) 1 − exp(− NTUa ) 

Twm = Tpi − ...................(11)
mpcpp 1 − exp(− NTUp ) 

From Equation (11), mean deluge water-film temperature can be calculated

iteratively. The outlet conditions can be found from Equations (5) and (7).
The outlet air is assumed to be saturated with water vapor. Numerous
correlations are found in the literature for the mass transfer coefficient (hd)
between the cooling water flowing downward over banks of horizontal tubes
and the upward flowing airstream. Parker and Treybal [6] tested tube banks
8 V. W. Bhatkar

consisting of 19 mm outside tubes arranged on a 2do triangular pitch, and

found-

( ma ) 
0.905

hd = 0.04935 (1 + w )  ......................................(12)
 Ac 

Air-vapor mass velocity is in the range of 0.68 < (mavm/Ac) < 5 kg/sm2
Mizushina et al. [6] tested bundles having 12–40 mm outside diameter tubes
arranged on a 2do triangular pitch and found-
hd = 5.5439 10−8 Re0.9avm Re0.15wm do −1.6 , kg / sm 2 ..................(13)
Above equation is valid for: 1.2 103  Re avm  240
Dreyer and Erens [23] investigated cross flow evaporative cooler with 38.1
mm outside diameter tubes arranged in a 2do mm triangular pattern and
found that-
hd = 5.5749 10−5 Re0.64avm Re0.2 wm , kg / sm2 ..................(14)
For 2500<Reavm<13500 and 230<Rewm<1100
Various correlations to determine the heat transfer coefficient between the
water film and the tube outer surface are: Parker and Treybal [6] studied the
heat transfer coefficient on the outside of smooth tubes as-
 m 
hw = 704 (1.3936 + 0.02214Twm )   ......................(15)
 do 
Equation (15) is suitable for water in the temperature range 15 °C to 70 °C,
outside diameter of 19 mm and maximum Reynolds number of 5000.
According to Mizushina et al. [6], the heat transfer coefficient is-
 m 
hw = 2102.9   0.333................................................(16)
 do 
This expression is valid for 0.2 < (  m/do) < 5.5 kg/m2s and air-side
Reynolds numbers in the range 1500 to 8000. Tube diameters varied from
 9
Heat and Mass Transfer Analysis of Evaporative Condenser
12.7 mm to 40 mm arranged on a 2do equilateral pitching. Dreyer and Erens
[23] found the following correlation for cross flow conditions

 m 
0.384

hw = 2843   W / m 2 K .......................................(17)
 do 
Valid for 0.038889<  m<0.180556 kg/ms and smooth tube with outside
diameter of 38.1 mm

3. Conclusion
A combined flow evaporative condenser is advantageous over other
evaporative condensers for reducing the energy consumption and increasing
the refrigeration capacity. The mathematical model for closed circuit
evaporative cooler is presented for the counter flow and cross flow
evaporative condensers for different air and water flow rates. It is observed
that as the condensing temperature drop by 3 to 4 °C, energy saving by 10 to
12% and coefficient of performance increases by 8 to 10%. It is found that
the cold water alone reduces the scaling in evaporative condenser by around
20-25% for increasing the life of the plant.

Acknowledgement

The author is thankful to Lafoundation Dassault Systems for providing

the grant for “Virtual Design and Simulation of Environmentally Friendly
Combined Flow Evaporative Condenser for Cold Storage Plants” with ID,
DSF:40/2020.

Nomenclature
Ac [m2] Air flow cross flow area between the tubes
avm [kg/m2s] Air vapour mass velocity
Cp [J/kgK] Specific heat at constant pressure
d [m] Diameter
10 V. W. Bhatkar
ef - Effectiveness of the finned surface
hd [kg/m2s] Mass transfer coefficient
hp [W/m2K] Heat transfer coefficient on the inside of the
tube
hw [W/m2K] Heat transfer coefficient between the tube
outer surface and water film
i [J/kg] Enthalpy
ma [kg] Mass of air
mp [kg] Mass of process fluid
mw [kg] Mass of water vapor
NTU - Number of transfer units
Q [W] Heat transfer rate
Re - Reynolds number
Rn [K/W] Resistances in tube wall thermal contact
including fouling
T [K] Temperature
Ua [W/m2K] Overall heat transfer coefficient between the
process fluid inside the tubes and the deluge
water film on the outside
Special character
 [kg/ms] Flow rate per unit length
Subscripts
a Air
av Mixture of dry air and water vapor
i Inlet, inside
m Mixture, mass transfer
max Maximum
min Minimum
o Outlet, outside
p Process fluid
v Vapour
w Water

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