Thermal performance of a closed wet cooling tower for chilled ceilings: measurement and CFD simulation

A closed wet cooling tower, adapted for use with chilled ceilings in buildings, was tested experimentally. The thermal efficiency of the cooling tower was measured for different air flow rates, water flow rates, spray flow rates and wet bulb air temperatures. CFD was also used to predict the thermal performance of the cooling tower. Good agreement was obtained between CFD prediction and experimental measurement. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simplification of analytical models and incorporation with CFD for the performance predication of closed‐wet cooling towers

Simplified analytical models are developed for evaluating the thermal performance of closed‐wet cooling towers (CWCTs) for use with chilled ceilings in cooling of buildings. Two methods of simplification are used with regard to the temperature of spray water inside the tower. The results obtained from these models for a prototype cooling tower are very close to experimental measurements. The thermal performance of the cooling tower is evaluated under nominal conditions. The results show that the maximum difference in the calculated cooling water heat or air sensible heat between the two simplified methods and a general computational model is less than 3%. The analytical model distribution of the sensible heat along the tower is then incorporated with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to assess the thermal performance of the tower. It is found that CFD results agree well with the analytical results when the air flow is simulated with air supply from the bottom of the tower, which represents a uniform air flow. CFD shows the importance of the uniform distribution of air and spray water to achieve optimum design. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Application of CFD to closed-wet cooling towers

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is applied to predicting the performance of closed-wet cooling towers (CWCTs) for chilled ceilings according to the cooling capacity and pressure loss. The prediction involves the two-phase flow of gas and water droplets. The predicted thermal performance is compared with experimental measurement for a large industrial CWCT and a small prototype cooling tower. CFD is then applied to the design of a new cooling tower for field testing. The accuracy of CFD modelling of the pressure loss for fluid flow over the heat exchanger is assessed for a range of flow velocities applied in CWCTs. The predicted pressure loss for single-phase flow of air over the heat exchanger is in good agreement with the empirical equation for tube bundles. CFD can be used to assess the effect of flow interference on the fluid distribution and pressure loss of single- and multi-phase flow over the heat exchanger.     

Thermal behaviour of closed wet cooling towers for use with chilled ceilings

A new closed wet cooling tower, adapted for use with chilled ceilings in buildings, was tested. Experimental correlations were obtained for mass and heat transfer coefficients. Existing thermal models for this type of cooling tower were found to predict well thermal performance, if the above correlations are used.     

Study on a silica gel–water adsorption chiller integrated with a closed wet cooling tower

A silica gel–water adsorption chiller integrated with a closed wet cooling tower is proposed. This adsorption chiller consists of two vacuum chambers, each with one adsorber, one condenser and one evaporator. Vacuum valves were not adopted in this chiller in order to enhance the reliability. A novel heat recovery process was carried out after a mass recovery-like process to improve the coefficient of performance (COP). Integration of the closed wet cooling tower into the chiller could ensure the cleanliness of cooling water circulating in the chiller and also promote the convenient setup of the chiller. A transient one-dimensional mathematical model was adopted to study this adsorption chiller. The simulated results showed that the cooling power and COP were 10.76 kW and 0.51 respectively when the hot water inlet temperature, the chilled water inlet temperature, the air inlet wet bulb temperature and dry bulb temperature were 85, 15, 28 and 30 °C respectively.     

A comprehensive approach to cooling tower design

In this paper, a mathematical model for a counterflow wet cooling tower is derived, which is based on one-dimensional heat and mass balance equations using the measured heat transfer coefficient. The balance equations are solved numerically to predict the temperature change of air and water, as well as the humidity as a function of the cooling tower high. Experimental measurements on two pilot-scale cooling towers were carried out in order to analyze the performance of different cooling tower filling materials. Also, the performance of other cooling tower elements, such as droplet separators and water spray nozzles, was investigated in the pilot experiments. The flow distribution, i.e. the velocity field, upstream to the filling material was predicted using the three-dimensional version of the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code Fluent/uns, version 4.2. The calculated flow fields are presented for different distances between the inlet of the air and the filling material. In addition, the two-dimensional version of the CFD code Fluent/uns, version 4.2, was applied to predict the external airflow around the cooling tower and the backflow in different weather conditions in summer and winter. The research project was carried out in connection to an industrial cooling tower installation.     

Numerical model of evaporative cooling processes in a new type of cooling tower

A numerical model for studying the evaporative cooling processes that take place in a new type of cooling tower has been developed. In contrast to conventional cooling towers, this new device called Hydrosolar Roof presents lower droplet fall and uses renewable energy instead of fans to generate the air mass flow within the tower. The numerical model developed to analyse its performance is based on computational flow dynamics for the two-phase flow of humid air and water droplets. The Eulerian approach is used for the gas flow phase and the Lagrangian approach for the water droplet flow phase, with two-way coupling between both phases. Experimental results from a full-scale prototype in real conditions have been used for validation. The main results of this study show the strong influence of the average water drop size on efficiency of the system and reveal the effect of other variables like wet bulb temperature, water mass flow to air mass flow ratio and temperature gap between water inlet temperature and wet bulb temperature. Nondimensional numerical correlation of efficiency as a function of these significant parameters has been calculated.     

自然通风湿式冷却塔加装挡风板优化设计

以湿冷机组自然通风冷却塔相关理论为基础,借助于CFD模拟软件,建立了火电机组湿式冷却塔的传热传质模型,主要的换热区域如填料、雨区和喷淋区采用离散相模型。由于冬季气温较低和塔内的换热不均,在冷却塔的填料下面、进风口处、基环面容易结冰,提出了在进风口处加装挡风板的方案,数值模拟分析结果显示,该方案改善了塔内温度场,有效的防止了塔内结冰。     

Solution of heat and mass transfer in counterflow wet-cooling tower fills

Model of heat and mass transfer in wet cooling tower fills is presented. The model consist of a set of four 1D ODEs describing the mass and energy conservation and kinetics with boundary conditions prescribed on opposite sides of the computational domain. Shooting technique with self adaptive Runge–Kutta step control is applied to solve the resulting model equations. The developed model is designed to be included in a large scale CFD calculations of a natural draft cooling tower where the fill is treated as a porous medium with prescribed distributions of mass and heat sources. Thus, the technique yields the spatial distributions of all flow parameters, specifically the heat and mass sources. Such distributions are not directly available in standard techniques such as Merkel, Poppe and e-NTU models of the fill where the temperature of the water is used as an independent variable. The method is validated against benchmark data available in the literature.     

基于焓差理论的带填料逆流闭塔热力性能分析

为了分析不同风量和喷淋水量对填料逆流闭式冷却塔热力性能的影响,建立和验证了带填料逆流闭式冷却塔热质交换的数学模型,基于焓差理论对模型计算的结果进行分析。结果表明：加入填料相当于对盘管区进口的喷淋水进行预冷,降低了喷淋水的平均温度,使带填料闭式冷却塔的冷却性能优于纯盘管闭式冷却塔;风量的增加可以提高带填料逆流闭式冷却塔和纯盘管逆流闭式冷却塔的热力性能,两种塔的冷却性能随风量增加的提升速率相同;喷淋水量的增加对纯盘管逆流闭式冷却塔的热力性能的影响较小,却可以较大幅度提高带填料逆流闭式冷却塔的热力性能。     

Integrated analysis of cooling water systems: Modeling and experimental validation

Cooling towers are widely used in many industrial and utility plants as a cooling medium, whose thermal performance is of vital importance. Despite the wide interest in cooling tower design, rating and its importance in energy conservation, there are few investigations concerning the integrated analysis of cooling systems. This work presents an approach for the systemic performance analysis of a cooling water system. The approach combines experimental design with mathematical modeling. An experimental investigation was carried out to characterize the mass transfer in the packing of the cooling tower as a function of the liquid and gas flow rates, whose results were within the range of the measurement accuracy. Then, an integrated model was developed that relies on the mass and heat transfer of the cooling tower, as well as on the hydraulic and thermal interactions with a heat exchanger network. The integrated model for the cooling water system was simulated and the temperature results agree with the experimental data of the real operation of the pilot plant. A case study illustrates the interaction in the system and the need for a systemic analysis of cooling water system. The proposed mathematical and experimental analysis should be useful for performance analysis of real-world cooling water systems.     

Numerical simulation of a closed wet cooling tower with novel design

A closed wet cooling tower with novel design was proposed and numerically investigated. The studied cooling tower consists of two main parts: one heat and mass transfer unit (HMTU) and one heat transfer unit (HTU). In the HMTU, copper tubes are arranged as heat transfer tubes while plastic tubes are collocated to enlarge the mass transfer area between the spray water and the airflow. In the HTU, only copper tubes are adopted as heat transfer tubes. Heat and mass transfer process takes place among the process water, airflow and spray water in the HMTU, while in the HTU only heat transfer between the process water and the spray water is observed. A transient one dimensional distributed-parameter model was adopted to evaluate the cooling tower performance under different operating conditions. Determination of heat and mass transfer coefficients, as well as the influence of Lewis number on the cooling tower performance, was presented.     

Three-dimensional numerical study on thermal performance of a super large natural draft cooling tower of 220m height

Based on the heat and mass transfer theory and the characteristics of general-purpose software FLUENT, a three-dimensional numerical simulation platform, composed of lots of user defined functions（UDF）, has been developed to simulate the thermal performance of natural draft wet cooling towers（NDWCTs）. After validation, this platform is used to analyse thermal performances of a 220m high super large cooling tower designed for inland nuclear plant under different operational conditions. Variations of outlet temperature of the cooling tower caused by changes of water flow rates, inlet water temperatures are investigated. Effects of optimization through non-uniform water distributions on outlet water temperature are discussed, and the influences on the flow field inside the cooling tower are analyzed in detail. It is found that the outlet water temperature will increase as the water flow rate increases, but the air flow rate will decrease. The outlet water temperature will decrease 0.095K and 0.205K, respectively, if two non-uniform water distribution approaches are applied.     

Thermal Performance Investigation of Mechanical Draft Cooling Tower Using Psychrometric Gun Technique

This paper presents an experimental work that studies the performance of a counterflow cooling tower with expanded wire mesh packing. Due to complicated configuration of the expanded wire mesh packing surface, it is not possible to measure the temperature of the air in the intermediate section of the cooling tower, but only that of the exit air and water temperature. In the experimental study a new concept of psychrometric gun technique is used to measure dry/wet bulb temperature of air at intermediate points of tower packing. First, the paper elaborates on the effect of atmospheric conditions, water mass flow rate and inlet temperature on the variation of the thermodynamics properties of moist air inside the cooling tower and thermal performance characteristics. Second, exergy analysis is applied to study the cooling tower potential of performance using the psychrometric gun technique. An analytical model was compared with experimental data.     

A comparison of solar absorption air conditioning systems

A computer simulation of solar powered absorption air conditioning systems is discussed. The results of simulations of various systems composed of conventional flat plate or evacuated tube collectors, wet or dry cooling towers, lithium bromide-water or aqua-ammonia working fluids and hot water, chilled water or refrigerant storage alternatives are obtained over a common operating cycle. Performance of the lithium bromide-water working fluid is shown to be superior to aqua-ammonia. Relative performance gains realized with the evacuated tube collector and relative performance losses associated with the dry cooling tower are presented. Chilled water storage is shown to be advantageous for an evacuated collector, dry cooling tower, lithium bromide-water system.     

Experimental and thermal analysis of energy efficient novel design wet cooling towers

Waste heat is generally dissipated from process water to atmospheric air in cooling towers. In the present study, a novel design is used to extract more amount of heat without any additional energy input by incorporating secondary ambient air in an induced draft wet cooling tower. In addition, more fresh air is induced in the tower from the rain zone, which increases the effectiveness at any value of the water to air flow rate (L/G ratio). Moreover, tower characteristics, range, and evaporation loss were also increased due to the novel design. It is noteworthy that secondary fresh air increases effectiveness, heat rejection, and tower characteristics by 10.12%, 19.65%, and 26.11%, respectively, and decreases approach by 16.32% at 0.55 L/G ratio, 44°C inlet water temperature, 29.7°C dry bulb temperature, and 18.4°C inlet air wet bulb temperature.     

Optimization of Thermal-Flow Processes in a System of Conjugate Cooling Towers

Abstract

The paper presents the thermal-flow study of a closed cooling system with special emphasis on the working parameters of natural draft wet cooling towers. The authors analyze the possibility of the improvement of the overall cooling efficiency of a closed cooling system consisting of several cooling towers by the proper redistribution of cooling water between individual units. The problem of the optimal redistribution of circulating water between cooling towers is formulated as a mathematical issue involving finding the extrema of the multivariate function with constraints fixing the total mass flow rate of cooling water circulated in the hydraulic installation and the ranges of the hydraulic loads of individual cooling towers. The optimization process requires information about the individual characteristics of each cooling tower, which is achieved by experimental measurements done on real objects. The research done inside the cooling towers enables the identification of the heat and mass transfer processes across its radius. Next, these characteristics are used to calculate the optimal cooling water flow rates to the cooling towers, giving the highest possible mean cooling water temperature drop in the system.     

采用复合吸附剂和高效吸附床的吸附制冷机性能测试

利用平行流换热器和自制的硅胶/氯化钙复合吸附剂研制了一台小型吸附式制冷样机,并对样机进行了试验测试。测试结果表明:相对于硅胶吸附制冷样机,复合吸附剂吸附制冷样机的COP和制冷功率都有了明显的提高;在热源温度为90℃,冷却水温度为35℃,冷冻水进口温度为16.5℃、出口温度为14.4℃,吸附10min,脱附5 min的运行工况下,在整个循环周期内(15 min),制冷功率为1.03 kW,SCP为128.3 W/kg,COP为0.29;在吸附周期内(10 min),制冷功率为1.54 kW,SCP为192.4 W/kg,样机的能量密度为10.3 kW/m3,平行流换热器的换热系数为472.3 W/(m2.K)。     

Numerical analysis of temperature non-uniformity and cooling capacity for capillary ceiling radiant cooling panel

Capillary ceiling radiant cooling panel is a high temperature cooling system, which could pose low energy consumption to meet thermal comfort requirements. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation study on heat transfer of chilled water flow in the capillary of ceiling radiant cooling panel was performed to attain surface temperature distributions and cooling capacities. Six influencing factors included chilled water inlet parameters, conditions of gypsum plaster and capillary mats structural parameters were considered to obtain the complicated relationships between capillary radiant panel conditions and heat transfer performance. The index of temperature non-uniformity coefficient was proposed to evaluate temperature profiles of ceiling panel surface. The results of the simulation were compared with the values depicted in ASHRAE Handbook and good agreement had been achieved. The average difference between simulation results and the values reported by ASHRAE handbook was within the region of 15%. The research results showed that temperature non-uniformity coefficient was negatively correlated with temperature of chilled inlet water (linear correlation), water velocity (correlation coefficient R = −0.85), and pipe diameter (correlation coefficient R = −0.93), but positively and linearly correlated with tube spacing. Cooling capacity was found to have negative linear correlation with temperature of chilled inlet water, covering thickness and tube spacing.     

Design and performance prediction of a novel double heat pipes type adsorption chiller for fishing boats

A novel double heat pipe type adsorber, which uses compound adsorbent of CaCl₂ and expanded graphite to improve the adsorption performance, is designed. The double heat pipes are integrated into the adsorbers in order to solve the problem of the corrosion between seawater and the steel adsorber in ammonia system and improve the heat transfer performance of the adsorber. There are two kinds of heat pipes integrated with the adsorber. One is the split type heat pipe for heating the adsorber in desorption phase, the other one is the two-phase closed thermosyphon heat pipe for cooling the adsorber in adsorption phase. The performance of two-adsorber adsorption chiller integrated with double heat pipes is predicted. The heat transfer performance of the heat pipes can meet the heat demands for adsorption/desorption of the adsorbent when the heating/cooling time is 720 s and mass recovery time is 60 s. When the exhaust gas temperature is 550 °C, the cooling water temperature is 25 °C, the inlet and outlet chilled water is −10 and −15.6 °C, respectively; the simulation results show that the cooling power and COP of this adsorption system are 5.1 kW and 0.38, respectively.