ANALYSIS AND PERFORMANCE OF RADIAL FLOW ROTARY DESICCANT DEHUMIDIFIERS

A model is developed to predict the steady periodic performance of a r adial flow desiccant wheel. The model is expressed in terms of the sam e dimensionless parameters that are commonly used in modeling of the c onventional axial flow desiccant wheel. In addition a dimensionless ge ometrical ratio of the volume of the matrix to the volume of the wheel core is found to affect the performance of the wheel. A finite differ ence technique on staggered grid is used to discretize the governing d imensionless equations. The discretized equations are solved to predic t the performance of the desiccant wheel at given values of operation parameters. A sensitivity study is carried out to investigate the effe ct of changing any of these parameters on the performance of the wheel . The performance of the radial flow desiccant wheel is compared with that of the convential axial flow desiccant wheel having the same valu es of the operation parameters.