Basic Air Conditioning Processes

1. Mixing
Where two air streams are mixed the psychrometric process is shown as a
straight line between two air conditions on the psychrometric chart, thus
points 1 and 2 are joined and the mix point 3 will lie on this line.
Two air streams are mixed in air conditioning when fresh air (m1) is brought
in from outside and mixed with recirculated air (m2).
The resulting air mixture is shown below as (m3).
The mixing ratio is fixed by dampers.
Sometimes, in more sophisticated plant, modulating dampers are used
which are driven by electric motors to control the mixture of air entering the
system.

The diagrams below show mixing of two air streams.

By the conservation of mass formula: m1 + m2 = m3

By the conservation of energy formula: m1 h1 + m2 h2 = m3 h3
Where: m = mass flow rate of air (kg/s)
h = specific enthalpy of air (kJ/kg) found from psychrometric chart.