Abstract: Based on the practical structure of the honeycombed rotary desiccant wheel and the nature of heat and mass transfer in the sinusoidal corrugated air duct, a one-dimensional coupled heat and mass transfer model, which is expected for use in designing and manufacturing of a honeycombed rotary desiccant wheel, is presented. The mathematical model has been validated experimentally with a real desiccant wheel. It is found that the calculation results are in reasonable agreement with the ex-perimental data. Based on this model, the temperature and hu-midity profiles in the wheel during both the dehumidification and the regeneration processes are analyzed and verified by experimental results. The numerical results indicate that in the regeneration process a hump curve of air humidity ratio along the channel exists all the time. To improve the regeneration efficiency, the migration time of the hump moving to the duct exit should be reduced. With the numerical analysis of the hump curve, the influences of some operating parameters on the hump value at the duct exit and its migration time are discussed.

Key words: Heat and mass transfer, Mathematic model, Rotary desiccant wheel