Numerical and experimental investigation on solid desiccant-assisted mobile air-conditioning system

In the conventional mobile air-conditioning system, evaporating temperature should be lower than the dew point temperature of cabin to control the temperature and humidity. Thus, reheating of the air is necessary. These two factors could increase the fuel consumption of the system. To overcome these issues, a solid desiccant-assisted mobile air-conditioning system is proposed and investigated. It is proposed to apply the solid desiccant to the mobile air-conditioning system to handle most of latent load, while the vapor compression cycle (VCC) handles the remaining latent load and sensible load. The model of the proposed concept is developed and validated with experimental data. Then, the possible configurations of the solid desiccant-assisted mobile air-conditioning system are discussed. Lastly, the proposed system is experimentally investigated with various operating conditions.