This paper presents some experimental investigations
to obtain correlations for saturation efficiency of
evaporative cooling pads. Two commonly used materials
namely aspen and khus fibers along with new materials
namely coconut fibers and palash fibers were tested in a
laboratory using suitably fabricated test setup. Simple
mathematical correlations have been developed for calculating
saturation efficiency of evaporating cooling pads
which can be used to predict their performance at any
desired mass flow rate. Performances of four different pad
materials were also compared using developed correlations.
An attempt was made to test two new materials (i.e.
fibers of palash wood and coconut) to check their suitability
as wetted media for evaporative cooling pads. It was
found that Palash wood fibers offered highest saturation
efficiency compared to that of other existing materials such
as aspen and khus fibers at different mass flow rate of air.