Abstract
This study was carried out to experimentally evaluate a heat-pipe built-in outdoor air-conditioning unit that can reheat and dehumidify without using extra energy. The outdoor air was precooled from 30.6 ℃ to 25.8 ℃ by the precooling heat pipe and reheated from 17.8℃ to 22.8℃ by the reheating heat pipe for a given air volume in the air-handling unit. In addition, the heat load of the cooling coil was reduced from around 32% to 22% as compared with the existing air-handling unit. Thus, during summer, the unit was introduced in an actual building, and we performed an evaluation based on the BEMS data. It was confirmed that the heat pipe provided a higher heat recovery ratio than the standard specification and the condition of the reheat and dehumidification cycle was normal.
