Two-dimensional numerical study of a heat and mass exchanger for a dew-point evaporative cooler

Highlights: • A two-dimensional numerical model of heat and mass transfer in a dew-point evaporative cooler was proposed. • An improved counter-flow dew-point evaporative cooler was designed and studied numerically. • The impacts of various operating conditions of the dew-point evaporative cooler were studied. • The best operational conditions of dew-point evaporative cooler were suggested. -- Abstract: This paper describes a two-dimensional numerical model of heat and mass transfer in a dew-point evaporative cooler that couples the momentum and mass transfer equations with the energy equation using various heat and mass transfer models. The numerical model is validated by experiment results from other studies and is then used to study the impacts of various operating conditions including the inlet volumetric air flow rate, working-to-primary air ratio, inlet water temperature, volumetric water flow rate and the temperature and humidity of the inlet air on the cooling in an improved dew-point evaporative cooler with a corrugated surface heat and mass exchanger.