Analysis and modelling of membrane heat exchanger in HVAC energy recovery systems.

The performance of membrane heat exchangers for HVAC total energy recovery systems was evaluated through experimentation and detailed system modelling. The operating principle of the membrane heat exchanger (enthalpy heat exchanger) is based on passing ambient hot and humid supply air over one side of a porous membrane heat exchanger surface and cold and less humid room exhaust air on the other side of the transfer surface. Due to the gradient in temperature and vapour pressure, both heat and moisture are transferred across the membrane surface causing a decrease in temperature and humidity of the supply air before it enters the evaporator unit of the conventional air conditioner. Hence both sensible and latentenergy are recovered.In this study, both experimental and numerical investigations were undertaken and mathematical models were developed to predict the performance of the latent heat recovery heat exchangers for use with conventional air conditioning systems. The membrane moisture transfer resistance was determined by a laboratory-scale permeability measurements. It was found that the membrane heat exchanger performance is significantly influenced by the heat exchanger flow profile and shape, heat and moisture transfer material characteristics, air velocity and air moisture content.Improvement of membrane heat exchanger performance requires an in depth study on flow, temperature and moisture distribution in the heat exchanger flow paths. Thus, a commercial CFD package FLUENT is used to model the membrane heat exchanger. However, software of this type cannot model moisture diffusion through the porous transfer boundary. Therefore, two user defined function codes have been introduced to model the moisture transfer in latent energy heat exchangers.The annual energy consumption of an air conditioner coupled with a membrane heat exchanger is also studied and compared with a conventional air conditioning cycle using the HPRate software. Energy analysis shows that in hot and humid climates where the latent load is high, an air conditioning system coupled with a membrane heat exchanger consumes less energy than a conventional air conditioning system. The membrane heat exchanger dehumidifies the air before it enters the air conditioning system, resulting in a decrease in energy consumption in comparison with conventional air conditioning system