Numer­ical assess­ment of conden­sa­tion and frost risk in membrane-based enthalpy exchangers

This Master’s Thesis is part of the research project Enthalpy, a cooperation of Fraunhofer Italia with the University of Innsbruck granted by the Autonome Provinz Bozen – Südtirol. The project aims to investigate the hygrothermal behavior of membrane-based enthalpy exchangers for building ventilation applications under condensation and frost conditions. The Thesis work will take place at the University of Innsbruck, Unit of Energy Efficient Building, under the supervision of Dr. Michele Bianchi Janetti and includes the following tasks:

• Familiarization with the theory and background on membrane-based enthalpy exchangers and heat and mass transfer modelling.
• Development of a numerical model with the software COMSOL to simulate the hygrothermal behavior of membrane-based enthalpy exchangers including condensation and frost formation.
• Model validation against measured data (the experimental results are taken from the literature and/or delivered by experiments performed in the project).
• Simulation of membrane-based enthalpy exchangers under real operation scenarios to investigate effects of condensation and frost formation on the exchangers` effectiveness.

Possible employment in the research project (max. 20 hours/week) to be discussed during the interview.

Figure: (a) Top view and (b) side view of the exchanger; (c) cross-sectional profile; (d) equivalent air-layer thickness of the enthalpy exchanger membrane as a function of relative humidity; (e) exploded view of the three-dimensional model; and (f) schematic of the enthalpy exchanger (EE) in the ventilation system.