Abstract
Indoor swimming pools require a high moisture-removal air-handling unit (AHU) to provide comfortable conditions and protect the structure, especially in humid climates. In conventional AHUs, a reheater is used to adapt to the supply air conditions after deeper cooling to remove moisture, which leads to a high energy consumption. This study investigated the use of desiccant-packed aluminum-foam heat exchangers (DPHEs) to cool and dehumidify process air in a new AHU. The proposed AHU used two fixed DPHEs in combination combined with dampers to switch between the cooling/dehumidification and regeneration modes. The performance of the two DPHEs was numerically investigated, and all air psychrometric processes were introduced under summer design conditions in selected case studies of an indoor swimming pool. Thermo-economic studies were carried out to compare the traditional AHU with the proposed system. The results demonstrated that the operating cost was considerably reduced by 51.8%, 37.5%, and 37.2% when the traditional AHU was replaced by the new AHU with DPHEs in the cities of Dammam, Alexandria, and Napoli, respectively. The proposed system can be used in other applications with high indoor and outdoor moisture gains.
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•Desiccant-packed metal-foam beds based air-handling unit was proposed and examined.•The high moisture air was effectively dehumidified by one process in the new AHU.•Chosen case studies for a swimming pool in different cities were investigated.•Sources of 20 °C and 40 °C were used to provide the cooling and regeneration demands.•The proposed AHU can save 51.8% operating cost compared to the traditional system.