Faculty Publications
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Item Semi-analytical method for heat and moisture transfer in packed bed of silica gel(2011) Ramzy K, A.; Ashok Babu, T.P.; Kadoli, R.A semi-analytical model for the heat and mass transfer of adsorption and desorption processes of the vertical solid desiccant packed bed dehumidifier is presented on the basis of quasi-steady state assumption, and is solved using close form integration with the limits equivalent to bed and time increments, and numerically by Runge-Kutta Fehlberg and forward scheme finite difference techniques. The most important parameters during the dehumidifier operation, namely, (i) exit air temperature and humidity, (ii) axial temperature distribution in the bed and (iii) water content are evaluated. Stability of the semi-analytical method is investigated and found that the main parameters affecting the model stability are the bed and time increments size. A dimensionless parameter combining time and bed increments size and air velocity named velocity ratio is defined and investigated. It is found that when the velocity ratio equals the ratio of particle diameter to bed length, the method is stable, and as the velocity ratio is made smaller beyond the stable velocity ratio, the results remain unchanged. The results of semi-analytical and numerical models agree well with the experimental results for both desorption and adsorption processes. Using the proposed semi-analytical model, the minimum and maximum relative errors for exit air temperature are 2.24% and 11.78%, respectively and for exit air humidity the minimum and maximum errors are 3.79% and 27.17% respectively. © 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Item Improved utilization of desiccant material in packed bed dehumidifier using composite particles(2011) Ramzy K, A.; Kadoli, R.; Ashok Babu, T.P.Solid desiccant dehumidifiers are widely used in drying processes. In most of these dehumidifiers, the desiccant material is used as packed bed of granule or spherical particles. Investigations of intra-particle heat and mass transfer processes has shown that the entire portion of the particle is not participating effectively during adsorption as well as desorption processes [Pesaran AA, Mills F. Moisture transport in silica gel packed beds-I. Theoretical study. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 1987; 30: 1037-49]. This is because the diffusion rate is very small compared to that of convection. In the present work, a new desiccant composite particle, in which the unutilized portion of the spherical desiccant particle is replaced with an inert particle, is proposed. By replacing the conventional particles with composite particles for the same mass of desiccant material, the available area for heat and mass transfer increases and more amount of desiccant material is effectively utilized. Further, in order to ascertain the improvement in the performance of the desiccant bed using the composite particles, various factors like thermo-physical properties of the inert material, composite particle thickness ratio, bed configuration, bed volume, the pressure drop and the increase in total adsorbed or desorbed mass have to be considered. In view of this, a theoretical investigation of the operation of vertical solid desiccant packed bed dehumidifier, using both conventional silica gel particles as well as the new proposed composite silica gel particles has been reported. A modified solid side resistance (MSSR) model is developed for the prediction of intra-particle temperature and water content profiles. Results of the present theoretical models, when applied to packed bed of conventional silica gel particles, agree well with the experimental results from the literature for both desorption and adsorption processes. From the theoretical results, more utilization for the desiccant material is obtained when ordinary silica gel particles are replaced by composite silica gel particles. For the same amount of desiccant material and same mass flow rate of air, using particles of 0.2 thickness ratio the pressure drop decreases by about 60% for the case investigated. In addition, an increase of about 11.07% and 20.46% in total mass adsorbed and desorbed respectively are obtained. At the time when adsorption process ends, an increase of 15.5% in the bed effectiveness has been obtained. In addition, the expected improvement in total mass adsorbed and desorbed is observed to be dependent on the inert material thermo-physical properties for thickness ratio less than 0.5. An optimization technique relating the composite particle design, resulting savings in pressure drop and bed volume increase is proposed. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd.Item Performance studies on the desiccant packed bed with varying particle size distribution along the bed(2012) Ramzy K, A.; Kadoli, R.; Ashok Babu, T.P.The transient heat and mass transfer in a desiccant packed bed containing varying particle diameter distribution along the axial direction has been investigated using the pseudo gas controlled approach that considers the heat conduction in the bed. The numerical results of the present model and the experimental data from literature show good agreement with a maximum root of mean square of errors of 3% and 2% for exit air temperature and humidity ratio, respectively. The improvement in the total mass adsorbed and/or reduction in pressure drop has been investigated for various cases of packed bed namely, uniform particle diameter, linear, parabolic and cubic ascending and descending distributions. It has been found that there is a 25.7% reduction in pressure drop with negligible reduction in the total mass adsorbed for a desiccant bed with cubic type particle size distribution when compared to the bed with uniform particle diameter of 1.0 mm. A threshold flow velocity exists below which the total mass adsorbed is independent of particle diameter distribution type. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.Item Experimental and theoretical investigations on the cyclic operation of TSA cycle for air dehumidification using packed beds of silica gel particles(Elsevier Ltd, 2013) Ramzy K, A.K.; Kadoli, R.; Ashok Babu, T.P.Dehumidification using desiccant beds provide a good alternative for the conventional vapor compression cooling system. Desiccant material in the desiccant dehumidification system should undergo both adsorption and desorption processes. In the present work, experimental tests have been carried out for thermal swing adsorption (TSA) cycle utilizing two packed beds of silica gel spherical particles. The pseudo gas side controlled (PGC) mathematical model has been presented for predicting the cycle performance. The mathematical model has been validated using the experimental results. The root mean square of errors ranges from 1.15% to 9.03% for the exit air humidity ratio and from 1.08% to 9.68% for exit air temperature. The dynamics of desiccant bed during the cyclic operation has been investigated numerically. In addition, it has been found from the parametric study that the cycle efficiency is maximum for a regeneration temperature of 90-95°C when the bed length varies from 50 to 300mm and for desiccant particle diameter ranging from 2 to 5mm. A sensible cooling for the process air before undergoing the dehumidification period is recommended for increasing the cycle efficiency and the dehumidification time which is an added advantage. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.Item Significance of axial heat conduction in non-isothermal adsorption process in a desiccant packed bed(2014) Ramzy, K.A.; Kadoli, R.; Ashok Babu, T.P.Numerical simulation of heat and moisture interactions between air stream and the particles in a desiccant bed provide useful insight on the dynamics of the bed and performance characteristics. Current study introduces a mathematical model for the heat and moisture transfer in desiccant packed bed based on solid side resistance (SSR) model that will now consider heat conduction along the bed. Adsorption and desorption experimental tests have been carried out for validating both solid side resistance (SSR) and solid side resistance with axial heat conduction (SSR-AC) models. The models have been used to investigate the influence of various design parameters like air velocity, particle diameter, bed length and the number of units of mass transfer, on the significance of axial heat conduction. It has been found that increasing the particle diameter or increasing air flow velocity or decreasing the bed length will reduce the influence of axial heat conduction in the bed. Moreover, it has been found that the difference in the bed performance evaluated due to the absence of axial heat conduction in the bed is notably decreasing with the decrease in the number of transfer units of heat or mass. From this study, it is recommended to consider the axial heat conduction term when number of transfer units of mass and heat are greater than unity. © 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.