Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis of Spray Cooling in Australia

Abstract

Spray cooling technology offers high levels of uniform heat removal with very low fluid volumes and has found recent application in relatively small-scale use cases. Since it is a complex process, research can enable spray cooling to be applied more widely and at larger scales, such as in HVAC, as a means to operate more efficiently. Weather conditions are one of the main parameters that directly affect the effectiveness of spray cooling. This study investigates the spray cooling performance for temperature and humidity conditions in six Australian cities. ANSYS Fluent (2021 R1) software is applied for the numerical simulation. The numerical model is first validated with the available literature before a numerical simulation is conducted to assess each city throughout the year. These include Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney. The spray cooling pattern, temperature, and humidity distribution, as well as the evaporation effect on different regions in Australia, is simulated and analysed based on the CFD technique. The results from this study indicate that weather conditions influence spray cooling for all cities, especially in summer. Along the wind tunnel, the temperature significantly drops at the spray cooling area, while the humidity increases. Due to the effect of spray cooling inside the wind tunnel, the temperature at the outlet is still lower than the inlet for all cases. However, the humidity at the outlet is higher than the inlet for all cases.

Keywords

• spray cooling
• computational fluid dynamics
• evaporation
• humidity