Determination of Performance of Different Pad Materials and Energy Consumption Values of Direct Evaporative Cooler

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine the performances of luffa and greenhouse shading netting (which can be used as alternatives to commercial cellulose pads, that are popular for cooling greenhouses), the contribution of external shading to the evaporative cooling performance, and the energy consumption of the direct evaporative cooler. In this experiment, eight different applications were evaluated: natural ventilation (NV), natural ventilation combined with external shading net (NV + ESN), cellulose pad (CP), cellulose pad combined with external shading net (CP + ESN), luffa pad (LP), luffa pad combined with external shading net (LP + ESN), shading net pad (SNP), and shading net pad combined with external shading net (SNP + ESN). The cooling efficiencies of CP, CP + ESN, LP, LP + ESN, SNP, and SNP + ESN were found to be 37.6%, 45.0%, 38.9%, 41.2%, 24.4%, 29.1%, respectively. Moreover, their cooling capacities were 2.6 kW, 3.0 kW, 2.8 kW, 3.0 kW, 1.7 kW, 2.0 kW, respectively. The system water consumption values were 2.9, 3.1, 2.8, 3.2, 2.4, 2.4 l h−1, respectively. The performance coefficients of the system were determined to be 10.2, 12.1, 11.3, 11.9, 6.6, 7.8. The system’s electricity consumption per unit area was 0.15 kWh m−2. As a result of the study, it was determined that commercially used cellulose pads have advantages over luffa and shading net materials. However, luffa pads can be a good alternative to cellulose pads, considering their local availability, initial cost, cooling efficiency, and capacity.