Evaporative Cooling for an Auditorium During the Dry Season in a Semi-Humid Hot Climate
Abstract
The performance of an evaporative cooling system in an auditorium to reduce daytime overheating during the hot dry season is analyzed. The auditorium is located in Temixco Morelos, Mexico. This region presents a hot semi-humid climate with pronounced dry and raining seasons. The auditorium was designed with a bioclimatic approach in order to operate without an air-conditioned system. Measurements show that hygrothermal comfort conditions are achieved during operative hours (daytime) for most part of the year. However, overheated conditions are present during the hot dry season (from March to June) in 33% of the daytime hours. An evaluation of the climatic conditions shows that evaporative cooling (EC) can be used in Temixco. Thus, the used of an EC system composed by small injection-type direct evaporative coolers is proposed. The Energy Plus software was used to simulate the auditorium using a fan coil air conditioning system; the consumed energy and the building thermal loads were calculated. The interior air temperature of the auditorium using the proposed EC system was obtained through an energy balance. The energy consumed by the EC system was compared with that consumed by the fan coil air conditioning system. More than 70% of energy can be saved using the EC system.