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 Experimental studies on heat and mass transfer in a packed bed of burnt clay impregnated with CaCl2 liquid desiccant and exploring the use of gas side resistance model(Elsevier Ltd, 2013) Hiremath, C.R.; Kadoli, R.An experimental and theoretical study on the transient adsorption characteristics of porous clay-CaCl2 bed is presented. In the experimental work, the spherical particles of burnt clay of 10 mm average diameter impregnated with liquid CaCl2 desiccant of 0.50 (wt.%) concentration are used as working desiccant in a vertical adsorption column. The bed properties are experimentally estimated. Measurements are made for transient values of exit air relative humidity and temperature. The influence of superficial velocity, inlet humidity ratio and bed height on the adsorption performance is investigated. In the theoretical study, governing equations for heat and mass transfer based on gas side resistance model is used. The numerical results obtained are compared with the results available in literature and the present experimental study. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. 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.Item Modified PGC model and its validation by experiments for heat and moisture transfer analysis in a vertical fluidized desiccant bed(Elsevier Ltd, 2015) Ramzy K, A.; Kadoli, R.Air dehumidification in fluidized beds utilizing desiccants is an alternative for the refrigeration methods. A variety of pseudo gas controlled (PGC) model are proposed by assuming constant and varying temperature as well as water content for the solid phase to evaluate the conditions of exit air during adsorption processes. Experimental tests for moisture adsorption in silica gel fluidized bed are carried out. The modified PGC model that assumes uniform water content, varying temperature and linear porosity distributions along the bed estimates the temporal average bed water content to agree very well with the experimental data. The RMSE of the numerical results of the present model ranges from 0.2 to 6% and that obtained from the isothermal model are in the range of 6%-68%. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Item Influence of ambient air relative humidity and temperature on thermal properties and unsteady thermal response characteristics of laterite wall houses(Elsevier Ltd, 2016) Saboor, S.; Ashok Babu, A.B.P.S.This paper presents the experimental investigation of the effect of ambient air humidity and temperature on thermal properties of the laterite rocks used in South-West coastal India. The experimental technique employed was transient plane source method in the saturated salt solution humidity controlled chamber. Experimental results showed an increase of thermal conductivity by 14.7% and specific heat by 9.15% with an increase in the relative humidity of ambient air in the hygroscopic range. A porous and ferruginous matrix of laterite was studied using a scanning electron microscope. The effects of relative humidity of the ambient air and temperature on the unsteady state thermal heat transfer characteristics such as transmittance, admittance, decrement factor, time lag, surface factor, surface factor time lag and heat capacity for different thicknesses of the laterite rock walls were investigated analytically. One dimensional heat flow equation under periodic convective boundary conditions was solved using matrix algebra and a computer simulation program which employs a cyclic admittance method was developed using MATLAB to compute unsteady state thermal characteristics. Results indicate that the decrement factor reduces by 8.35% and time lag increases by 2.88% with an increase in the relative humidity of ambient air compared to the dry state for the Indian standard laterite rock thickness. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd.Item Experimental and theoretical study on dehumidification potential of clay-additives based CaCl2 composite desiccants(Elsevier Ltd, 2018) Hiremath, C.R.; Kadoli, R.; Katti, V.V.Transported clay suitable for pot making is used as desiccant carrier. Additives like saw dust and horse dung are considered in particle preparation. Particles nearly spherical in shape are prepared manually and are dried under shadow and subsequently the particles are dried at different temperatures. These burnt particles are characterized for pore volume and surface area. The BET test reveals that clay particles subjected to 500 °C possess higher pore volume but clay-horse dung particles exhibit higher surface area. Heat treated particles of clay with additives are impregnated with CaCl2 solution of 50% concentration. The ratio of desiccant water content to surrounding layer water content varies from 14.09 to 75.34 for CaCl2 based composite desiccants. One dimensional PGC mass transfer model for process air through burnt clay – additives - CaCl2 desiccant bed is adopted. The RMSE of measured and predicted results for reduction of moisture content from the process air by composite desiccant beds are in the range of 3.26–13.2%. © 2017 Elsevier LtdItem Estimation of dew point temperature using SVM and ELM for humid and semi-arid regions of India(Taylor and Francis Ltd. michael.wagreich@univie.ac.at, 2018) Deka, P.C.; Patil, A.P.; Yeswanth Kumar, P.; Naganna, S.R.The dew point temperature is the temperature at which the moisture in the air begins to condense into dew or water droplets. The accurate estimation of the dew point temperature is very important as it controls the heat stress on humans, detects fluctuations of evaporation rates, and humidity trends. The dew point temperature is a significant parameter particularly required in various hydrological, climatological and agronomical related researches. This study proposes Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) models for the estimation of daily dew point temperature. The daily measured weather data (Wet bulb temperature, relative humidity, vapor pressure and dew point temperature) of humid and semi-arid regions of India were used for model development. The statistical indices, namely Mean Absolute Error, Root Mean Square Error, and Nash Sutcliffe Efficiency were adopted to evaluate the performances of these two models. The merit of the ELM model is evaluated against SVM technique in the estimation of dew point temperature. The proposed ELM models demonstrated much greater capability than the SVM models in the estimation of daily dew point temperature. © 2017 Indian Society for Hydraulics.Item Experimental analysis on humidification-dehumidification desalination system using different packing materials with baffle plates(Elsevier Ltd, 2021) Thanaiah, K.; Gumtapure, V.; Mitiku Tadesse, G.The primary objective of the present work is to address the issue of the water scarcity problem facing us globally. This manuscript also attempts to incorporate a Humidification-Dehumidification Desalination Technique (HDHT) using artificial and bio-based packing materials. The thermodynamic analysis of a Humidification-Dehumidification Desalination System (HDHDS) by mathematical and experimental methods is studied in detail. To produce the maximum amount of fresh water, two configurations are developed and analyzed under weather conditions prevailing in South India (INDIA). First, the experiments were carried out with artificial packing material (Polypropylene) with and without baffle plates. Next, the second set of configurations used bio-based packing material (Paddy grass) with and without baffle plates. The present analysis inferred that the volumes of fresh water produced were 0.39, 0.46, and 0.73 kg/h without, and with artificial and bio-based packing materials. The rate of fresh water production increased to 36.30% and 46% for artificial and bio-based materials respectively. There was an increase observed in Gain Output Ratio (GOR) as well in the range of 0.28, 0.40, and 0.65 without, and with artificial, and bio-based packing material. GOR increased up to 30% and 56%, when using artificial and bio-based packing material respectively. The present study reveals that the bio-based packing material is highly advantageous in the production of fresh water and in achieving better GOR. © 2021 Elsevier Ltd