A Computer Aided Design for an Air Washer and a Dehumidifier Tested against Two Graphical Solutions for Their Applications

Abstract

A MATLAB code is developed to simulate design criteria used for designing an air washer that operates as a humidifier for air, as well as a dehumidifier. These results, which are based on two practical design examples for the air washer and dehumidifier, are based on previously solved examples using a manual graphical approach as presented in the literature. In the first example, a case of a parallel-flow air washer is used to heat and humidify the outgoing air. In the second example, a counter-flow spray dehumidifier of the air is accomplished where the air is cooled and dehumidified from its initial conditions. The error of the results obtained by this code compared with the manually obtained graphical data is less than 0.24 % and shows the potential use of this computer-based approach for educational purposes so that students can change different parameters and see the outcome of their design criteria on the performance of the air washer and the dehumidifier. With an increase in the number of numerical steps needed to reach the desired design it is shown that the accuracy will increase accordingly.