Extreme heat poses a major obstacle for human settlements in desert regions. Such hot and dry regions possess favorable conditions for passive evaporative cooling. This study aims to design and investigate the performance of porous evaporative cooling surfaces used to cool down indoor environments in desert climates. A case study with a porous evaporative cooling wall in a thermal shelter in Arizona is examined, where average summer conditions are 40 ℃ and 30% relative humidity. First, a physical experiment was set up in a climate chamber to compare the evaporative cooling performance of evaporative surface modules made of three different hydrophilic materials. Subsequently, energy simulation models were used to determine the cooling load demand for the proposed thermal shelter building. The simulated cooling load demand served as a benchmark to assess the cooling capacity of an evaporative cooling wall integrated with different hydrophilic materials for the proposed building, calculated from the experimental data. The results show that the aspen pad performs best in terms of evaporative cooling and can provide sufficient cooling for the test building in a hot, arid climate.
Expand Image
