Investigation of a hybrid system of nocturnal radiative cooling and direct

evaporative cooling
Ghassem Heidarinejad
a,
*
, Moien Farmahini Farahani
a
, Shahram Delfani
b
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, PO Box 14115-143, Tehran 14117, Iran
b
Building and Housing Research Center (BHRC), PO Box 13145-1696, Tehran, Iran
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 5 August 2009
Received in revised form
24 December 2009
Accepted 4 January 2010
Keywords:
Nocturnal radiative cooling
Cooling coil
Direct evaporative cooling
Hybrid cooling system
a b s t r a c t
In this paper, the results of a study on a hybrid system of nocturnal radiative cooling, cooling coil, and
direct evaporative cooling in Tehran have been discussed. During a night, the nocturnal radiative cooling
provides required chilled water for a cooling coil unit. The cold water is stored in a storage tank. During
eight working hours of the next day, hot outdoor air is pre-cooled by means of the cooling coil unit and
then it enters a direct evaporative cooling unit. In this period, temperature variation of the conditioned
air is investigated. This hybrid system complements direct evaporative cooling as if it consumes low
energy to provide cold water and is able to fulll the comfort condition whereas direct evaporative alone
is not able to provide summer comfort condition. The results obtained demonstrate that overall effec-
tiveness of hybrid system is more than 100%. Thus, this environmentally clean and energy efcient
system can be considered as an alternative to the mechanical vapor compression systems.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Cooling is an essential issue in air conditioning of most buildings
in warm and humid climates. In fact, due to great consumption of
energy in buildings, there are increasing demands to design
building heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) equip-
ments and systems energy efciently. Among the HVAC compo-
nents and systems, cooling systems consume the largest amount of
electrical energy. The issues of climatic change caused by global
warming, the consumption of fossil fuels, the resources depletion,
and demand for reducing pollutant particles have led to a growth
use of natural resources instead of conventional energy resources
or partly replacement of active cooling system. The usage of passive
cooling has been considered to drive cooling cycles to provide
comfort cooling. In addition, evaporative cooling system can be an
economical alternative, or as a pre-cooler in the conventional
systems. Also, it is known due to its zero pollution, easy mainte-
nance, low energy consumption, simplicity, and good indoor air
quality [18].
Passive cooling resources are the natural heat sinks of the planet
in order that understanding their parameters is worthwhile for all
varieties of cooling methods. Three heat sinks of nature are the sky,
atmosphere, and the earth. Energy transfer to sky is entirely done
by radiation in the wave-length interval from approximately
814 mm. In fact, the only means which the earth can lose heat is
radiative cooling [1,3].
Signicant thermal comfort can be achieved during summer by
passive cooling in buildings with a great reduction of cooling loads.
A black object at ambient temperature interacts with all tempera-
ture range of atmospheric layers and causes cool down beneath of
ambient temperature in optimum situations. Heat dissipation
techniques are based on the transfer of excess heat to a lower
temperature natural sinks. Regarding sky, heat dissipation is
carried out by long-wave radiation froma building to the sky that is
called radiative cooling. The sky equivalent temperature is usually
lower than the temperature of the most bodies on the earth,
therefore, any ordinary surface that interact with the sky has a net
long-wave radiant loss [2,3].
Direct evaporative cooling (DEC) is the oldest, and the most
widespread form of air conditioning. The underlying principle of
DEC is the conversion of sensible heat to latent heat. Through
a direct evaporative cooling system, hot outside air passes a porous
wetted medium. Heat is absorbed by the water as it evaporates
from the porous wetting medium, so the air leaves the system at
a lower temperature. In fact, this is an adiabatic saturation process
in which dry bulb temperature of the air reduces as its humidity
increase (constant enthalpy). Some of the sensible heat of the air is
transferred to the water and become latent heat by evaporating
some of the water. The latent heat follows the water vapor and
diffuses into the air. The minimum temperature that can be
obtained is the wet bulb temperature of the entering air [811].
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 98 21 82883361; fax: 98 21 88005040.
E-mail address: gheidari@modares.ac.ir (G. Heidarinejad).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Building and Environment
j ournal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ l ocat e/ bui l denv
0360-1323/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2010.01.003
Building and Environment 45 (2010) 15211528
In HVAC systems, cooling coils unit (CCU) perform an essential
function by exchanging the cooling load from the hot air to the
chilled water loop by pushing air ow through the coil. Also, CCU
can be utilized as pre-cooler systems to decrease temperature of
hot air. Totally, utilization of cooling coils affects performance of
HVAC systems increasingly [12,13].
Several research papers were dedicated to explore issues about
nocturnal cooling such as, Berdhal and Fromberg (1982) [14],
Argiriou et al. (1994) [15], Ali et al. (1995) [16], Mihalakakou et al.
(1998) [17], Al-Nimr et al. (1998, 1999) [18], Spronken-smith (1999)
[19], Erell and Etzion (1999, 2000) [2023], Meir et al. (2003) [3],
Bagiorgas and Mihalakakou (2007) [2], Bassindowa et al. (2007)
[24], Salim Shirazy et al. (2008) [25,26], and Farmahini Farahani
et al. (2009) [27]. Aforementioned research studied experimental
and theoretical investigation of long-wave radiance, nocturnal
radiative cooling and its potential in different conditions, and
effects of different parameters on it. Regarding direct evaporative
cooling, Lueng (1995) [28], Halaz (1998) [29], Camargo et al.
(20002005) [8,30], Dai and Sumathy (2002) [31], Liao and Chiu
(2002) [32], and Al-Sulaiman (2002) [33] have proposed mathe-
matical modeling and done experimental in order to analyze
efciency or simulate direct evaporative cooling. Furthermore,
Scoldeld and DesChamps (1984) [34], Al-Juwayhel et al. (1997)
[35], El-Dessouky et al. (2004) [36], and Heidarinejad et al. (2009)
[37] have studied two-stage evaporative cooling to examine its
efcacy on performance.
To the best knowledge of the authors of this paper, no signicant
investigation has been performed on combining nocturnal cooling
and evaporative cooling. Thus, lack of information about feasibility
of this new combination is the motivation of this study.
In this research, the water in a storage tank is cooled by means of
circulating the water through a at-plate radiator throughout
a night (nocturnal radiative cooling). During the next day, the cold
water in the storage tank is used in a cooling coil unit as chilled
water to decrease temperature of outdoor air (pre-cooling). Then,
the pre-cooled air with lower wet bulb temperature passes through
a direct evaporative pad (See Fig. 1). By this way, the hot outdoor air
is pre-cooled through the CCU which augments efcacy of whole
cooling system. The chilled water is obtained froma renewable and
pollutant-free process which consumes low energy in comparison
with conventional mechanical vapor compression systems. The
performance and feasibility of such cooling system have been
analyzed in this paper.
2. Modeling and formulations
This system consists of four parts 1 Radiator, 2 Storage tank,
3 Cooling coil, and 4 Direct evaporative cooling. Formulations
and modeling of each part have been described in the following
subsections.
2.1. Formulation of the at-plate radiator
The at-plate collector as heat exchanger is studied and
temperature distribution in any desirable point along at-plate is
proposed by equation (1) [4,20]. If time interval is kept reasonably
small, this steady state expression predicts accurate outlet
temperature.
T
f
T
a
S=U
L
T
fi
T
a
S=U
L
exp
_
U
L
nwFy
_ mC
p
_
(1)
Where, T
f
is the outlet uid temperature, T
a
is the ambient air
temperature, T

is the uid temperature at the collector inlet, S is

the emitted radiative energy to sky from surface of the collector, U
L
is the overall heat loss coefcient of the collector, n is the number of
parallel tubes in the collector structure, w is distance between the
tubes, y is the tubes length, F is the collector efciency factor, _ m is
the mass ow rate through the collector, and C
p
is the specic heat
of the uid.
The at-plate collector efciency factor denotes the proportion
of the factual real gainrate per tube per unit lengthtothe gainwhich
would occur if the collector absorber plate were at the temperature
T
f
[38]. The at-plate collector efciency factor depends onstructure
of the collector, character and thermal conductivity of the adhesive
material between tubes and absorber plate, and heat transfer
coefcient of heat carrier inside of tube. The at-plate collector
efciency factor value varies between 0.85 and 0.95.
The overall heat loss coefcient U
L
is sum of heat losses around
the collector such as, convection on top of the collector and
conduction under and on sides of the collector. The heat loss due to
conduction beneath of the collector is the proportion of thermal
conductivity of the insulation to thickness of the insulation. Because
the sides loss is less than 5%, it is negligible. The top loss coefcient
U
t
is assessed by considering convection losses from the upward
surface of the collector. The highest amount of heat loss takes place
at the top of the collector. Equation (2) estimates top loss.
U
t
1:8 3:8v 1:35 < v < 4:5 (2)
where v is wind velocity. If the wind velocity is less than 1.35 m/s,
this expression overestimates the heat loss [39], but it does not
interfere calculation.
2.2. Modeling of sky equivalent temperature
Ambient temperature and sky equivalent temperature are two
effective measures of the surrounding conditions. These two
measures affect the cooling performance and outlet temperature of
the collector exposed to the night sky. The difference between
ambient temperature and sky equivalent temperature demon-
strates the potential of the nocturnal cooling [25]. The wind speed
Fig. 1. A Schematic diagram of the hybrid system of radiative cooling, cooling coil, and direct evaporative cooling.
G. Heidarinejad et al. / Building and Environment 45 (2010) 15211528 1522
is another surrounding condition which is accounted for top heat
loss of the collector as described previously. The sky temperature is
dened as the temperature of a black body radiator emitting the
same amount of radiative power as the sky [20]. Equation (3)
relates the effective sky temperature to the ambient temperature,
and dew point temperature [26,39].
T
Sky
T
a
_
0:741 0:0062T
dp
_
1=4
(3)
Where T
a
and T
sky
are the ambient air temperature and sky equiv-
alent temperature, respectively, T
dp
is dew point temperature. In
equation (3), both T
a
and T
sky
are calculated in Kelvin, but T
dp
is in
Celsius.
The emitted radiative energy to sky fromsurface of the collector
S can be calculated from following linearized expression [1].
S
net
43
r
sT
3
air
_
T
col
T
sky
_
(4)
where 3
r
is the hemispherical infrared emissivity of the collector,
s is the StefanBoltzmann constant (5.67 10
8
), and T
col
is the
collector temperature. In this investigation the collector tempera-
ture is an average of inlet and outlet water temperature of the
collector.
2.3. Stratication water tank
As a functional matter, many tanks show some degree of strat-
ication. In a thermally stratied situation, the temperature of the
contained liquid varies fromthe bottomto the top, being less at the
bottom and more at the top. This situation is in contrast to well-
mixed tank in which the liquid temperature is uniform throughout.
According to Fig. 2, a tank can be modeled as being divided into N
sections, with energy balance for each section of the tank. The
result is a set of N differential equations that can be solved for the
temperatures of the N sections as functions of time [38,40]. Strat-
ication improves with increasing tank height/diameter ratio,
temperature difference, and inlet as well as outlet port diameters,
while stratication decreases with increasing ow rate [41]. The
schematic pattern of stratied storage tank is shown in Fig. 2.
Utilizing low mass ow rate causes an increase in temperature
difference of outlet and inlet from the radiator and consequently
results in higher degree of thermal stratication in the water tank.
In addition, the temperature at the bottom of the tank will be
cooler. Thus, auxiliary energy consumption will reduce. Moreover,
in highly stratied tank the inlet temperature to the collector will
be higher, which derives more absorbed energy. Related work in
solar systems shows that energy storage efciency increases up to
6% [40,42,43]. Due to the importance of stratication in storage
tanks, in this investigation mass ow rate is chosen in a way that
saves water stratication in the tank.
In stratied tanks, an energy balance on each section can be
expressed as:
m
i
C
p
dT
s;i
dt
a _ m
c
C
p
_
T
ro
T
s;i
_
b
i
_ m
L
C
p
_
T
L
T
s;i
_
UA
s;i
_
T
s;i
T
a
_

_
g
i
C
p
_
T
s;i1
T
s;i
_
; if g
i
>0
g
i
C
p
_
T
s;i
T
s;i1
_
; if g
i
<0
5
Where,
a
i

_
_
_
1; if i N and T
ro
< T
s;i
1; if T
s;i1
T
ro
< T
s;i
0; otherwise
b
i

_
_
_
1; if i 1 and T
L
> T
s;i
1; if T
s;i
T
L
< T
s;i1
0; otherwise
g
i

_

_
_ m
L

N1
j 1
b
i
; if i N
_ m
c

N
j 2
a
i
; if i 1
_ m
c

i1
j N
a
i
_ m
L

i1
j 1
b
i
; if i 2; .; N 1
(6)
Inequation(6), _ m
c
and _ m
L
are mass owratefromthecollector and
mass ow rate of the load respectively, T
ro
is the temperature of heat
carried fromthe collector, and T
L
is the temperature of the load[4,44].
2.4. Modeling of cooling coil
Because input temperatures of both uids are given and output
temperatures are required to be found out, the 3NTU method is
chosen. A sensible cooling process only exists when the outer
surface temperature of the coil is equal to or higher than the dew
point of the entering air. A sensible cooling process is indicated by
a horizontal line towards the saturation curve on the psychrometric
chart. In other words, the humidity ratio is always constant [45].
Outside surface area of the coil (A
o
) multiply its overall heat
transfer coefcient based on outside surface area of the coil (U
o
) can
be calculated as [46]:
U
o
A
o

_
1
h
s
h
a
A
o

_
D
out
2A
i
K
tube
ln
_
D
out
D
in
__

1
h
i
A
i
_
1
(7)
where, h
s
is nned surface efciency, which depends on area of ns,
outside surface area, and n efciency, D
out
, D
in
are outer and inner
tube diameter, K
tube
is the thermal conductivity of metal of the
tubes, A
i
is inner surface area of tubes, and h
a
, h
i
are heat transfer
coefcient of air side of the coil andtube side of the coil, respectively.
2.4.1. Air side heat transfer coefcient
On the air side, hot air meets chilled water tubes rows that lead
to reduction in temperature of the air ow. Several heat transfer
coefcients have been proposed. For the staggered arrays, the
following approximates Nu within 15% [47].
Nu
h
a
d
k
CRe
n
d;max
Pr
0:36
(8)
Fig. 2. A schematic pattern of stratied storage tank.
G. Heidarinejad et al. / Building and Environment 45 (2010) 15211528 1523
Where, C, n depend on geometrical arrangement of the coil, Re
d, max
is Reynolds number based on the velocity through the narrowest
cross section, and Pr is Prandtl number.
For corrugated ns, h
o
should be multiplied by a factor F
cor
of
1.11.25 to account for the increase in turbulence and rate of heat
transfer.
2.4.2. Water side heat transfer coefcient
For chilled water at turbulent ow inside the tubes, the inner
surface heat transfer coefcient h
i
can be calculated by the Dittus
Boelter equation [48]:
Nu
D

h
i
D
i
k
w
0:023Re
0:8
Pr
0:3
(9)
where, k
w
is thermal conductivity of water in tubes. This formula is
the most popular correlation.
2.5. Modeling of direct evaporative cooling
In a direct evaporative cooler, the transformation of the heat and
mass between air and water causes decrease in the air-dry bulb
temperature (DBT) and increase in its humidity, while the enthalpy
is basically constant in a perfect process. The minimum tempera-
ture that can be attained is the wet bulb temperature (WBT) of the
incoming air. Wet pads or porous materials equip a water surface in
which the air is humidied and the pad is wetted by dripping water.
Assuming the hot air ow near to a wet surface, according to
Fig. 3, heat transfer occurs due to the difference in surface
temperature T
s
and the ow of air temperature T
air
. Mass transfer
also occurs, because the absolute humidity (concentration) of the
air close to the surface u
air
is different fromthe humidity of the wet
surface u
s
.
The total differential heat ow is
dQ h
c
T
s
T
a
h
m
i
ys
u
s
u
a
dA (10)
where, T
a
is air temperature, T
s
is surface temperature, u
a
absolute
humidity of air, and u
s
is absolute humidity of wet surface. Using
the specic enthalpy of the mixture as the sum of the individual
enthalpies and assuming that air and vapor are perfect gases,
equation (10) can be rewritten as:
dQ
h
c
C
pu
_
i
s
i
a

u
s
u
a

Le
i
vs
i
v
Le
_
dA (11)
where, h
c
is convective heat transfer coefcient, h
m
is mass transfer
coefcient, i
a
is enthalpy of air, i
s
is enthalpy of surface, i
vs
is
enthalpy of vaporization of the water at surface temperature, i
v
is
specic enthalpy of the vapor at surface temperature, C
pu
is specic
heat of the humid air, and Le (h
c
)/h
m
C
pu
is Lewis number.
By considering Le 1 the second term in bracket in equation
(11) is negligible in presence of the rst term this mainly because,
the order of both u
s
and u
a
are lowand obviously, the order of their
difference is much lower than order of difference of i
s
and i
a
. Hence,
the second term can be eliminated. Therefore, by combining
equation (10) with equation (11) and integrating, the temperature
of output air will be:
T
a;out
T
s
T
a;in
T
s
exp
_

h
c
A
_ m
a
C
pu
_
(12)
It is assumed that the makeup water entering the sump to
replace evaporated water is at the same adiabatic saturation
temperature of the incoming air. Dowdy and Karabash introduced
a correlation to establish the convective heat transfer coefcient in
a rigid cellulose paper evaporative media [49]:
Nu 0:1
_
l
e
l
_
0:12
Re
0:8
Pr
1=3
(13)
where, l
e
V/A is characteristic length in which V is volume of
evaporative pad and A is total wetted surface area (area of the heat
transfer surface), l is pad thickness.
Reynolds and Nusselt numbers are calculated by characteristic
length.
2.6. Saturation effectiveness
The cooling effectiveness of the CCU and DEC can be calculated
by the following equation:
3
T
a;in
T
a;out
T
a;in
T
s;in
(14)
where 3 is the cooling effectiveness, T
a,in
and T
a,out
are the inlet and
outlet dry bulb temperatures of the air streamrespectively, and T
s,in
is the inlet wet bulb temperature of the air stream. According to
equation (12), cooling effectiveness of the stand-alone DEC unit is
lower than unity, but for the combined system it may be greater
than unity. This is because the outlet dry bulb temperature of the
air stream can be lower than the inlet wet bulb temperature. As
expressed in equation (14), the denition of saturation effective-
ness is only based on the temperature difference. Energy
consumption of transportation of uids is not considered in this
denition.
3. Results and discussion
The theoretical investigation of the hybrid system of nocturnal
cooling, cooling coil and direct evaporative cooling has been
studied in Tehran, capital city of Iran. Tehran (Longitude 51.4

,
Latitude 35.7

) which is the most populated city in Iran has the

highest electrical consumption during summer. Finding a viable
alternative with higher effectiveness and capability of providing
comfort condition during summer to convenient cooling systems
was the motivation of this research. The study has been done on
August 5th and 6th, 2008. The ambient temperatures, dew point
temperatures, and wind speed are derived from Iran meteorolog-
ical organization internet site.
An uncovered (unglazed) at-plate collector is used for
nocturnal radiative cooling. The dimensions of the at-plate
collector are 2.054 1.11 m
2
, and it consists of eight copper tubes.
Each tube has a diameter of 10 mmand center-to-center distance of
0.147 m. The 200 L water tank used here is isolated with a 20-cm
thick glass wool, k 0.05 W/m

C. Volume of the water storage tank

is big enough to adequately store required cold water for use in the
next day. Therefore, the ratio of the radiative surface area to the
water storage tank is A/V 0.0114 m
2
/l. This ratio impacts outlet
water temperature and water storage tank. As far as mass ow rate
is concerned, it is worth mentioning that mass ow rate does not Fig. 3. Schematic element of direct evaporative cooling.
G. Heidarinejad et al. / Building and Environment 45 (2010) 15211528 1524
signicantly inuence cooling process in close circulations.
Decreasing mass ow rate causes to lower outlet water tempera-
ture. Since volume of water with lower temperature is less than
before, total amount of heat which is added to the water tank
remains constant. Nevertheless, from stratication in storage tank
point of view, high mass ow rate impairs it. However, in an open
circulation, lower mass ow rate can cause cooler heat carrier [18].
Totally, a stratied water tank has much higher performance than
a fully mixed water tank, so a proper mass ow rate should be
considered to save energy in the water storage tank. In order to gain
best results and stratication be maintained, the water mass ow
rate of _ m
w
0:01667 kg=s
_
V
w
60 L=h is chosen. Moreover, all
thermodynamic properties of water (in the radiative part) and air
(in the CCU and DEC) vary by temperature.
The stratication water tank modeling is used to analyze
temperature changes of liquid in the water tank. Therefore, the
water tank is divided into ve sections. At night for the radiative
cooling in which the water in the storage tank is intended to be
cooled, the output water, which is warmer, exits from top of the
tank and input water enters from the radiator at the bottom of the
water tank. However, during the next day, the colder water at
the bottom of the tank ows towards the cooling coil and turns
back at the top of the water tank. This approach makes the cooling
process more efcient.
The radiative cooling part has been validated by results of Meir
et al. experimental investigation [3]. Fig. 4 compares this modeling
and their experimental results.
As far as the cooling coil is concerned, it has corrugated
aluminum ns with staggered copper tubes. The water mass ow
rate is similar to the radiative cooling part and air volume ow rate
of 1000 CFM (air face velocity in SI is 2.27 m/s) is chosen. This ow
rate is sufcient for a room to be conditioned. Table 1 lists other
geometrical specications.
The theoretical modeling of coil has been veried by using
experimental setup test located in Building and Housing Research
Center (BHRC) as shown in Fig. 5.
The air ow after pre-cooling process enters evaporative pad
with same velocity. An evaporative pad with dimensions of
0.46 0.46 0.2 m
3
is considered. It is worth mentioning that
width and height of the pad are equal to dimensions of the cooling
coil. In other words, it is assumed that air passes through the same
channel.
As shown in Fig. 6, modeling of DEC is validated according to
experimental results of Camargo et al. [30] in which efciency is
illustrated versus Reynolds number based on characteristic length.
As stated in Figs. 46, all parts of the hybrid system are modeled
accurately. Consequently, combination of them can precisely
predict results.
The rst segment of this system is nocturnal radiative cooling
which provides cold water for cooling coil unit. Fig. 7 shows average
temperature of the water in the storage tank from August 5th at
9:00 PM to August 6th at 6:00 AM. The average temperature is
calculated based on average temperature of ve sections in the
water tank. All the initial temperatures, including water in tank and
initial inlet water temperature are assumed to be 28

C. Later
results prove that these initial values were selected precisely. As it
Fig. 4. Validation of the radiative cooling part with Meir et al. [3] at May 1920,
A/V 0.019 m
2
/l.
Table 1
Operating parameters of cooling coil.
Height width 46 46 mm
2
Number of rows of tubes 6
Number of tubes per row 12
Fin pitch 394 per meter
Fin efciency 0.935
Fin thickness 0.254 mm
Vertical tube spacing 38.1 mm
Horizontal tube spacing 30.5 mm
Tube outside diameter 15.875 mm
Tube wall thickness 0.508 mm
Fig. 5. Verication of cooling coil modeling, air volume ow rate is 530 CFM and water
mass ow rate is 0.2 kg/s.
Fig. 6. Validation of direct evaporative cooling modeling.
G. Heidarinejad et al. / Building and Environment 45 (2010) 15211528 1525
is shown in Fig. 7, temperature of the water reduces due to radiation
towards sky.
The cold water obtained at night is used during 8 h of the next
day (August 6th) as the chilled water in the cooling coil to reduce
temperature of outdoor air. Usually ofces begin at 9:00AM and
continue to work up to 5:00PM. Fig. 8 depicts temperature differ-
ences after each process. Relative humidity of entrance (outdoor)
air is considered to be 29%.
Fig. 8 shows that hot outdoor air is pre-cooled by means of
cooling coil unit and the average temperature difference between
entering and leaving air is 8

C. Then, pre-cooled air ows through
evaporative pad. Through the evaporative cooling process relative
humidity of air increases, but its sensible temperature drops
down. The average temperature difference between entering and
leaving air in direct evaporative cooling is 5.5

C. Thus, tempera-
ture of hot outdoor air approximately decreases 13.5

C at any
time step.
Fig. 9 illustrates two last points of Fig. 8 on psychrometric chart.
As shown in Fig. 9, the hybrid system can provide comfort condi-
tion. However, stand-alone direct evaporative cooling cannot meet
the comfort conditions as it is demonstrated. Note that the direct
evaporative cooling satises the comfort conditions critically in
Tehrans ambient conditions.
Regarding stratied water tank, during cooling process from
9:00 PM to 6:00 AM temperature of the layers varies. The warmer
layer is always at top of the tank while the coldest one is at bottom
of the tank. This situation is shown in Fig. 10. After cooling process
by the radiator, from 6:00AM to 9:00AM, water in the tank
continues its stratication and due to warmer ambient, tempera-
ture of all layers increase insignicantly. During use of the cold
water in the tank from9:00AM to 5:00PM, increase in temperature
of higher layers at this period is slower than lower layers. This is
because, on the one hand, water exits from the bottom of the tank
and the upper layer takes place of the lower layer. So after a while
the lowest layer will gain temperature of its upper layer. On the
other hand, temperature of entering water at top of the tank does
not remarkably differ from the top of the tank. From 5:00PM to
9:00PM, temperature of layers of water in the tank increase
without losing their stratication. Indeed, demand for more accu-
rate calculation necessitate stratication modeling of the water
tank. As shown in Fig. 10, average temperature of water in the
storage tank at the last point (9:00 PM) is near to 28

C and it
evinces that assumed initial temperature is admissible. Pressure
drop in tubes is insignicant during day time and night time,
because during night time water is circulated between the water
storage tank and the radiator. Tubes between these two the water
tank and the radiator are assumed to be short, and also, the length
of tubes through the radiator is short (approximately 2 m). Thus
pressure drop is not important. The same process happens during
Fig. 7. Average temperature of water storage tank and temperature of ambient.
Fig. 8. Temperature differences after each process.
Fig. 9. Two-stage cooling process on psychrometric chart.
Fig. 10. Temperature of different stratied layers of water tank.
G. Heidarinejad et al. / Building and Environment 45 (2010) 15211528 1526
day time, but the cooling coil is used instead of the radiator.
However, pumping power may insignicantly inuence water
temperature approximately 1

C.
Fig. 11 compares effectiveness of three cooling methods, direct
evaporative cooling, two-stage system of cooling coil unit/direct
evaporative cooling, and two-stage direct/indirect evaporative
cooling. It shows that effectiveness of conventional direct evapo-
rative cooling can remarkably increase by adding a cooling coil unit.
In addition, according to Fig. 9, leaving air from the hybrid system
can reach the comfort conditions. However, direct evaporative
cooling is not able to provide this condition lonely. Furthermore,
although two-stage direct/indirect evaporative cooling has a high
effectiveness, it consumes more water than the hybrid system of
cooling coil unit/direct evaporative cooling. It is worth mentioning,
the effectiveness is calculated only based on temperature difference
of air through the CCU and DEC. However, considering efciency of
all devices, including pumps, a fan, and uid ow, needs a new
formula and with the new formula efciency might not be more
than unit.
As far as economical point of view is concerned, the price of the
new system (price of the radiator, CCU, evaporative pad, and other
devices) can be the same as the price of a mechanical vapor
compression system (it depends on the brand, cooling power, and
other factors of system). However, electrical energy consumption of
the newsystem is much lower than mechanical vapor compression
systems. The reason is that although, two small pumps, which
pump water during night and day time to radiator and CCU, and
a fan, that blows air through the evaporative pad, consume energy
in this newsystem, a compressor in mechanical vapor compression
system consumes much more energy in comparison with afore-
mentioned devices. Furthermore, according to the governmental
new policy, all energy subsidies will be eliminated within three
years. Thus, electrical energy increases remarkably, necessitating
a low electric consuming system in Tehran. Besides economical
aspects, this system adds no heat to environment.
4. Conclusion
The behavior of the hybrid systemof nocturnal radiative cooling,
cooling coil, and direct evaporative cooling has been investigated
during 8 h in Tehran. The chilled water for the cooling coil unit is
provided by the nocturnal radiative cooling at previous night. The
results show that Tehran has the capability of providing cold water
at night during summer. Also, whereas direct evaporative coolers
lonely cannot provide comfort conditions, the hybrid system has
high potential to provide comfort conditions. In addition, the
effectiveness of the hybrid system is considerably higher than
stand-alone direct evaporative cooling. Taking advantage of sky as
a renewable source of the passive cooling, the hybrid cooling
system can be considered as an environmentally clean and energy
efcient system. Thus, this system can be used as a replacement for
mechanical vapor compression systems, leading to decrease elec-
trical energy consumption.
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Nomenclature
A: total wetted surface area (m
2
)
A
i
: inner surface area of tubes (m
2
)
C
p
: specic heat of the uid (J/kg

C)
C
pu
: specic heat of the humid air (J/kg K)
D
out
, D
in
: outer and inner tube diameter (m)
F: collector efciency factor
h
a
, h
i
: heat transfer coefcient of air side of the coil and tube side of the coil,
respectively (W/m
2
C)
h
c
: convective heat transfer coefcient (W/m
2
C)
h
m
: mass transfer coefcient (kg/m
2
s)
i
a
: is enthalpy of air
i
vs
, i
v
: specic enthalpy of vaporization of the water and vapor at surface
temperature (J/Kg)
K: thermal conductivity (W/m K)
l: pad thickness (m)
l
e
: characteristic length (m)
Le: Lewis number
_ m: mass ow rate (kg/s)
n: number of parallel tubes in the collector structure
S: emitted radiative energy to sky (W/m
2
)
T
a
: ambient air temperature (

C)
T
col
: collector temperature (K)
T
dp
: dew point temperature (

C)
T
f
: outlet uid temperature (

C)
T

: uid temperature at collector inlet (

C)
T
sky
: sky equivalent temperature (K)
U
L
: overall heat loss coefcient (W/m
2
C)
v: wind velocity (m/s)
V: volume of evaporative pad (m
3
)
w: distance between the tubes (m)
y: tubes length (m)
3
r
: hemispherical infrared emissivity
3: saturation effectiveness
h
s
: nned surface efciency
s: StefanBoltzmann constant (W/m
2
C)
G. Heidarinejad et al. / Building and Environment 45 (2010) 15211528 1528