Effect of forced ventilation on the thermal performance of wet cooling towers

Abstract

To enhance the thermal performance of the wet cooling tower under crosswind environment, a 3D numerical model of a wet cooling tower is proposed based on the method of utilizing the water-dropping potential energy to achieve the purpose of forced ventilation of the wet cooling tower. Under the condition of an annual average crosswind speed of 5 m/s, the effects of the number, power, and installation layouts of the fan groups on the thermal performance of the tower are investigated. The results show that the forced ventilation method can effectively alleviate the unfavorable impacts of the crosswind, and the vortices area on the leeward is reduced. Within the scope of this paper, the number of fans has a slight effect on the performance when the power of the fan is less than 200 kW. When the power of the fans exceeds 200 kW, the thermal performance of the forced ventilation tower with the fan groups is obviously better than that with an axial fan. The research indicates that the cooling tower equipped with four fans has better performance. Under the power of 200 kW and 1000 kW, the outlet water temperature is about 0.12 °C and 0.34 °C lower than that of the conventional tower.

Keywords

• Wet cooling tower
• Forced ventilation
• Crosswind environment
• Thermal performance