Industrial buildings tend to become heat magnets during the summer months. Due to the large size, high ceilings and poor insulation in these buildings, they create conditions that can be downright unbearable for workers on extremely hot days. Not only will these hot conditions negatively impact worker productivity, but it can also place employees at increased risk of dangerous health issues such as heat stroke.
For these reasons, it is critical that you install an effective cooling system at your industrial facility. Trying to cool a large industrial building with air conditioning is typically too expensive to make it a viable solution. Instead, a more affordable, effective and energy efficient solution is to use evaporative cooling systems to maintain comfortable temperatures in your industrial facility.
Evaporative cooling leverages the scientific process of evaporation on a large scale to deliver cool air to your industrial space.
Hot outside air is drawn in, passing over the saturated pads called evaporative media. As the hot air hits the media, it causes the water on the cooling pads to evaporate, and this process drops the air temperature by as much as 30°F. This cooler air is then distributed throughout your industrial facility to achieve more comfortable temperatures that will improve employee safety and maximize worker productivity.
There are three different types of evaporative cooling systems which can be used at industrial facilities:
Direct evaporative cooling is the simplest of the three solutions. Hot air triggers the evaporation process when it comes into contact with the evaporative media, and the cooled air is then pumped into your industrial space.
A significant amount of humidity is introduced into the air via direct evaporative cooling. Therefore, this solution is ideally suited for use in hot, dry climates where additional moisture in the air will be beneficial.
While indirect evaporative cooling also cools the air temperature via evaporation, this solution uses a heat exchanger to manage the process.
Hot outside air is drawn over a series of metal tubes, called a heat exchanger, that are saturated with water on their outer surfaces. The hot air causes the water on the outside of the tubes to evaporate, dropping the temperature of the tubes.
This causes the air inside the tubes to become cooler, and this cool air is then distributed throughout your industrial building.
Since the cooled air doesn’t come into contact with the water, no humidity is added to the air. Therefore, indirect evaporative cooling is more effective in humid climates where adding extra moisture to the air is undesirable.
The most advanced evaporative cooling solution available combines the two processes discussed above for enhanced benefits. This process is called two-stage evaporative cooling, or indirect/direct evaporative cooling.
In the first stage, hot air cools the air inside a heat exchanger in the same manner as with indirect evaporative cooling. During this phase, no additional moisture is added to the air. In the second stage, the air cooled in phase one passes over evaporative media to provide additional cooling.
Because the air interacts with wet cooling pads, moisture is added to the air during the second stage of cooling. But since the air has already been cooled prior to passing over the evaporative media, its capacity for holding moisture is lower than the hot air passing over cooling pads in a direct evaporative cooling process.
Therefore, it is a more versatile solution that can deliver highly effective results in both humid and arid climates.
There are a variety of benefits to choosing evaporative cooling at industrial environments:
Discover how to get even more benefit from evaporative cooling for industrial facilities.
Kuul provides industry leading cooling solutions for industrial buildings. Our Kuul Control™ technology has been constructed using the highest quality materials and can withstand the rigorous demands of industrial environments. This allows you to achieve the high performance cooling necessary to keep your workers safe.
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