Effect of synergistic optimization of sound barriers, fillings and water distribution on the thermal performance for wet cooling towers

Abstract

In order to reduce the rain zone noise of wet cooling towers and enhance the heat transfer and ventilation, the effect of sound barriers on the thermal performance of wet cooling towers with synergistic optimization of fillers and water distribution was studied based on three-dimensional numerical calculations. It is found that under the working conditions of this research, the sound barrier and the two zone synergistic efficiency scheme can uniformly distribute the temperature field, air flow velocity distribution, and water vapor mass fraction distribution inside the cooling tower. The two zone synergistic efficiency enhancement scheme can to some extent counteract the adverse effect of the noise barrier on the heat transfer performance of the cooling tower, resulting in an average increase of 0.06 ℃ and 3.8% in the circulating water temperature drop and merkel number compared to the original tower, respectively. Although the ventilation capacity of the entire tower has been reduced after the renovation, the distribution of the aerodynamic field is more reasonable, which is more conducive to the heat exchange of the cooling tower. This study can provide reference for the design of a two-zone synergistic cooling tower with sound barriers.

Keywords

• sound barriers
• wet cooling tower
• non-equidistant fillings
• non-uniform water distribution
• numerical simulation