Air-to-Air Heat Exchangers for Air Handling Units: Fundamentals and Types - AHUmag...

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Air-to-Air Heat Exchangers for

Air Handling Units:
Fundamentals and Types
By AHUmag | on March 18, 2015 |
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Air-to-Air Heat Exchangers for Air

Handling Units: Fundamentals and
Types

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Nowadays the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in buildings is a topic increasingly

taken into account in the design of HVAC systems.
With the need to provide to the buildings large amounts of outdoor air (to
comply with local legislations for air changes rates related with IAQ
requirements), became essential to recover energy form the exhaust air in
the Air Handling Units, that had previously been treated as fresh air
(heated/cooled) in order to reach the indoor comfort setpoint temperature.
Using heat recovery systems it is possible to reduce the energy
consumption used to heat or cool the fresh air.
The average payback time for this kind of components, depending of
factors like the design air conditions (outdoor and indoor), pressure drop
of the system (extra electrical consumption for the fans) and the
characteristic efficiency of each model and size of heat exchangers,
typically is between less than 1 year and 2 years.
Among all types of heat recovery systems the most used in Air Handling
Units are the air-to-air heat exchangers.

TAGS

The air-to-air heat exchangers can be used for heat and/or moisture
recovery.

Fundamentals

adiabatic cooling
adiabatic humidification
AHR Expo

AHRI

The operating principle of air-to-air heat exchangers (or air-to-air heat

recovery systems) consists of exchange temperature and/or humidity
between the exhaust and supply airflows inside the Air Handling Units. This

AHU

Airedale

air handling unit

Camfil

way the thermal energy contained in the exhaust air is recovered for the
supply air and thus the load of energy required to

certification program

heat/cool/humidify/dehumidify the air is reduced, in more than 50%.

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Air-to-Air Heat Exchangers for Air Handling Units: Fundamentals and Types - AHUmag... Page 3 of 8

Before the introduction of air-to-air heat exchangers in the AHUs (and the

coils

Conference

HVAC systems) the exhaust conditioned air was simply discharged directly
to the atmosphere.

Data Center

ebm-papst

EC motor
How to calculate the Sensible Heat Recovery Efficiency...
education center
Sensible Effectiveness (ASHRAE 84) and Sensible Temperature Ratio
(EN308)

EMI

EN 1886
energy recovery

eSDM

Calculator
Eurovent

Types

Eurovent Market Intelligence

There are several types of air-to-air heat exchangers with mean recovery

evaporative cooling

efficiencies from 50% up to 90%, depending the type of heat exchanger

and the outdoor and indoor air conditions (temperatures and humidity).

Exhibition
filter

Fans
Filters

From all types of air-to-air heat exchangers the most used in Air Handling
Units applications are:

filtration

Flkt Woods

heat exchanger

Rotary Heat Exchangers

Heat Recovery
The rotary heat exchangers is one of the most efficient air-to-air heat
exchangers and are able to handle large airflows.
The core of this heat exchanger is the rotor, or wheel, made from

innovation

Klimak

Klingenburg

less noise

aluminium foils. Half of the rotor is in contact with the exhaust airflow
while the other half contacts the supply airflow. The wheel is driven by
means of a motor and a belt, rotating the wheel and transport the heat

OJ Electronics
project reference

Plug Fan
rating

recovered in the half wheel from the exhaust airflow to the supply airflow.
If the right conditions are achieved, outdoor and indoor temperatures and
humidity, the efficiency claimed by manufacturers for a rotary heat

rotary

Sandometal

sorption rotor

standard

exchanger can reach up to 90%.

The size of the rotors can go from small diameters size (domestic
applications) to huge diameters for industrial applications (5 meters).

statistics
Steam Humidifiers

There are several types of rotors, for different applications, that are able to
recover temperature and/or humidity. Depending the coating applied to

United Kingdom

the wheel they can be used also to drying and humidification. Wheels used
to dry the air are also called as desiccant wheels.
Usually this kind of heat exchanger is not used in applications that
demands zero contamination between the exhaust airflow and the supply
airflow.

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Air-to-Air Heat Exchangers for Air Handling Units: Fundamentals and Types - AHUmag... Page 4 of 8

Air-to-Air Rotary Heat Exchanger for Air Handling Units. Click to

zoom.

Plate Heat Exchangers

The plate heat exchangers are the most used solution amoung the ait-to-air
heat exchangers. This kind of solution offers high leak tightness which
means that the percentage of leakage from the exhaust airflow to the
supply airflow is near zero.
There are two types of plate heat exchangers: Counter Flow Plate Heat
Exchangers and Cross Flow Plate Heat Exchangers.

Air-to-Air Counter Flow Heat Exchanger for Air Handling Units. Click
to zoom.

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Air-to-Air Cross Flow Heat Exchanger for Air Handling Units. Click to
zoom.

As the name itself suggests the design of the cross flow plate heat
exchanger forces the exhaust airflow and the supply airflow to crosses
between them. If comparing with the counter flow heat exchanger, where
the exhaust airflow and the supply airflow have a opposite path (counter),
the cross flow heat exchanger for the same conditions have lower
efficiency. Opposite airflows can maximize the heat energy exchange.
In the case of counter flow heat exchangers with the right conditions,
indoor and outdoor, manufacturers claim 85%-90% efficiency. This value
can reach to around 70% for the cross flow heat exchangers.
This lower efficiency, of the cross flow heat exchanger, is compensate with
the possibility to work with a wider range of airflows (due to his structural
design can be larger in size, due to modular construction).
Moreover the cross flow heat exchanger offer more options of spacing
between the plates than the counter flow heat exchanger, so for industrial
applications the pressure loss and the heavy contamination of the air will
play an important role to choose the cross flow heat exchanger as the
preferred option.
The standard material used to produce the plates is aluminium, but they
can also be manufactured in plastic and aluminium with epoxy coating for
special application, for example processes with high temperatures or
corrosive atmospheres like swimming pools.

Run Around Coils

Such as the heat recovery systems detailed in the previously points, the
Run Around Coils recover the heat from the exhaust airflow and transfer it
to the supply airflow.
Typically this system is composed by two water coils, connected each other
by pipework and a pump that circulates the water from one coil to the
other, among all the other accessories as expansion vessel, controls, etc.
The water, most of the times, have a percentage of glycol for anti-freeze
protection.
The heat recovered in the exhaust coil is transferred by the circulating
water to the supply coil that will then transfer that heat to the supply
airflow.
This system usually is used in installations where the exhaust airflow and
the supply airflow are split (one supply AHU and one exhaust AHU) or if
there is a demand of 0,0% leak between the two airflows, due to air

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Air-to-Air Heat Exchangers for Air Handling Units: Fundamentals and Types - AHUmag... Page 6 of 8

contamination issues.
In this kind of system the usual heat recovery efficiencies claimed by
manufacturers can go up to 60% (up to 75% in high efficiency option).
The run around coils only recover sensible temperature.

Air-to-Air Run Around Coils Heat Exchanger for Air Handling Units.
Click to zoom.

Heat Pipes
Typically this system is composed by one large coil, commun to the exhaust
and the supply airflows with a division between the two airflows, as two
coils conected by the pipework. The tubes of the coil are sealed and
charged with a refrigerant (one of the most used is the R134a). In this
system there is no need of any energy input, as well as in the plate heat
exchangers.
The exhaust warm air makes the gas inside the tubes to evaporate, and
that vapor moves to the cooler section of the heat pipes system. The vapor
when reach the part in the cold airflow of the tubes will condensate and
return to the warm airstram part again by gravity.
The average efficiencies claimed by manufacturers for this systems are up
to 75%.
When instaled in the vertical configuration (double-deck) this system only
work perfectly in one of the seasons (Winter or Summer), depending if the
exhaust airflow will be located in the upper deck or in the bottom deck.

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Air-to-Air Heat Pipes Heat Exchanger for Air Handling Units. Click to
zoom.

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