Heat Transfer Enhancement of the Air-Cooling Tower with Rotating Wind Deflectors under Crosswind Conditions

Abstract

To investigate the effect of wind deflectors on air flow and heat transfer performance of an air-cooling tower under crosswind conditions, an experimental system based on a surface condenser aluminum exchanger-type indirect air-cooling tower is established at a 1:100 proportional reduction. A 3-D computational fluid dynamics simulation model is built to study the air flow and temperature fields. The air flow rate into the cooling tower and the heat transfer rate of the radiators are used to evaluate cooling performance. Rotating wind deflectors are adopted to reduce the influence of crosswind on the cooling tower performance. The effects of the rotating wind deflectors on the thermal-hydraulic characteristics of the air-cooling tower under different environmental crosswind speeds are studied. Results indicate that the wind direction in the tower reverses as the rotating speed of the wind deflectors increases. The thermal performance of an air-cooling tower under crosswind conditions can be improved by using rotating wind deflectors. The heat transfer rate of a cooling tower with eight wind deflectors begins to increase when the rotating speed exceeds 2 r/min.

Keywords

• air cooling tower
• heat transfer rate
• air flow rate
• rotating wind deflector
• crosswind