The Thermophysical Properties of Various Types of Evaporative Cooling Pads Materials

The evaporative cooling system has better advantages than conventional systems in terms of the economic costs, methods of operation, energy consumption, and no pollution, as caused by the fluorocarbon gases and their role in increasing global warming. Although the cooling pads play a key role in evaporative cooling, their thermophysical properties have yet been thoroughly investigated. Hence, in the present investigation, four natural cooling pads’ materials thermophysical properties were tested, i.e., thermal conductivity, porosity, permeability, density, and moisture content. The studied cooling pads’ materials were straw, corrugated cardboard (COCA), palm fibers (PAFI), and alhagi graecorum (ALHGR). The experimental results showed that the ALHGR had the highest thermal conductivity, i.e., 0.0395 W/m.K, while the PAFI had the lowest thermal conductivity, i.e., 0.032 W/m.K. The density of the ALHGR was the highest, i.e., 704.5 kg/m3, while the PAFI had the lowest density, i.e., 355.76 kg/m3. From an economic perspective in terms of production and manufacturing cost, it was found that the ALHGR had the lowest cost, whilst the COCA was the most expensive one. From high to low porosity, of the materials were ordered as following: the PAFI, straw, COCA paper, and ALHGR. While the materials can be arranged in terms of permeability from the higher to smaller values as follows: PAFI, straw, COCA paper, and ALHGR. Consequently, the ALHGR can be considered as an excellent pad for evaporative cooling in houses, poultry, and halls due to its good thermophysical performance and low costs.