Introduction to cooling coils

The purpose of using air conditioning is to provide air at comfortable dry-bulb temperature, relative
humidity and ‘freshness’ for the human occupants of buildings. The designer selects equipment which can
cope with the heat loads as they vary throughout the day. The design process includes selection of
refrigeration plant and it requires some familiarity with the design details of air-conditioning heat
exchangers, which are known throughout the industry as ‘air-conditioning coils’, ‘cooling coils’, ‘heating
coils’ or just ‘coils’. Cooling coils are finned-tube heat exchangers with air flowing between the fins and
liquid coolant flowing through the tubes. The purpose of a cooling coil in an air-conditioning system is to
produce air of the desired temperature and humidity for the air-conditioned space. The cooling coil
removes heat energy from the air which flows through it. This removed heat energy has two components,
sensible heat and latent heat. Sensible heat loss decreases dry bulb temperature without changing the
moisture content of the air. On a psychrometric chart sensible cooling is drawn as a horizontal line moving
to the left. Sensible heat loss increases the relative humidity. The latent component of heat loss is heat
lost from the air by condensation, and so it can be determined by measuring the mass of water condensed
from the air. A cooling coil removes latent heat by reducing the temperature of the heat transfer surfaces
below the “dew point” of the air flow, and so inducing condensation on those heat transfer surfaces.
Clearly it is not possible to produce a purely latent heat transfer. In this experiment, the latent and
sensible cooling rate will be measured.

Method and procedure

The experiment can be separated into two parts, the first one is to measure sensible cooling rate and the
second part is to measure latent cooling rate. All cooling rates in two tests need to be measured at three
different air –face velocities, which are 1.3 m/s, 1.85 m/s, 2.6 m/s. Note that the 1.3m/s velocity is not
easy to achieve so that it is helpfully to cover the air inlet with a piece of cloth. Flow speed is determined
by measuring the pressure drop across and orifice at the exit of the duct and by using the following
calibration formula which is give in the P.A. Hilton operating manual:

𝑚𝑎̇ = 0.0517√𝜌𝑎 𝛥ℎ (6)

Where 𝑚𝑎̇ is the air mass flow rate (kg/ s), 𝜌𝑎 is air density (kg/𝑚3 ) and 𝛥ℎ is the pressure drop
in mm of water.
The temperature in the fan, pre-heaters, and re-heaters will be measured by two thermometers.
One is to measure dry bulb temperature and the other one is to measure wet bulb temperature.
Sensible cooling rate

In this session, the on-coil air temperature for the test is adjusted to 35 degree, which will ensure that the
off-coil air temperature will be significantly higher than the dewpoint. It is given that the maximum
expected temperature drop across the coil is about 20 degree; therefore, it is necessary to maintain the
on-coil temperature to be 30 degree in order to avoid dehumidification. The on-coil temperature needs
to be the same for each of the selected air speed.

The velocity of the wind can be maintained by maintaining the water height. After settling down the wind
velocity, the temperature of condenser outlet, compressor outlet and compressor inlet will be measured.
The pressure at the compressor inlet, compressor outlet and condenser outlet will be measured as well.

Latent cooling test

After measuring the sensible cooling rate, latent- cooling rate test will be conducted at the same three air
speeds. In order to obtain significant dehumidification, on-coil relative humidity needs to be adjusted to
60 % and the temperature of on-coil needs to be maintained less than 25 degree.

COP determining

The COP will be determined by two methods, the equations are demonstrated below:
𝐻𝑒𝑎𝑡 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑓𝑒𝑟 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐷𝑋 𝑐𝑜𝑖𝑙
𝐶𝑂𝑃 =
(𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 )𝑝𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑜𝑟

ℎ3 − ℎ2
𝐶𝑂𝑃 =
ℎ4 − ℎ3
Where h2, h3 and h4 are the specific enthalpies of refrigerant at the corresponding corners of the
refrigeration cycle. To determine h3 and h4, the pressure and temperature at inlet and outlet of the
refrigeration compressor. The point 1 in the figure 1 represents that the refrigerant is in a fully liquid state
and temperature contours are almost vertical at the outlet of the condenser.

Figure 1: Schematic Mollier chart of a refrigeration cycle (thick solid line 1-2-3-4). The saturation
curve is shown as a thin solid line. Temperature contours are shown as dashed lines.

Enthalpy of the liquid refrigerant is therefore almost independent of pressure, and can be obtained with
reasonable accuracy by measuring only the temperature, T1. Expansion through the TX valve is isenthalpic,
so h 2= h1. The pressure that in the table of thermodynamic is absolute, which is different from the
pressure that measured through gauge.