Abstract
Deep seawater, compared with surface seawater, has more stable low water temperature characteristics throughout a year. It is available in vast amounts and can be considered to be renewable energy resource. We carried out space cooling experiments using the low water temperature characteristics of deep seawater at the research facilities for deep seawater. We evaluated the indoor thermal environment and the performance of a cooling apparatus. The main findings of the experiments are: (1) We were able to create a favorable indoor thermal environment by means of ceiling pipe cooling utilizing deep seawater of approximately 12℃ which is rather high for a design temperature (7℃) of a convectional air conditioning apparatus; (2) During daytime when the cooling load is high, the data obtained (from the experiments) which indicates an energy saving in the order of 40 percent compared with an electrical air conditioner: and (3) The heat transfer mechanism of the cooling apparatus used in the experiments (for the amount of approximate heat extraction rate) consisted of convectional elements (60%), radiative elements (20%), dehumidifying elements (10%), and heat loss elements (10%).
