An exergy analysis on the performance of a counterflow wet cooling tower

Abstract

Cooling towers are used to extract waste heat from water to atmospheric air. An energy analysis is usually used to investigate the performance characteristics of cooling tower. However, the energy concept alone is insufficient to describe some important viewpoints on energy utilization. In this study, an exergy analysis is used to indicate exergy and exergy destruction of water and air flowing through the cooling tower. Mathematical model based on heat and mass transfer principle is developed to find the properties of water and air, which will be further used in exergy analysis. The model is validated against experimental data. It is noted from the results that the amount of exergy supplied by water is larger than that absorbed by air, because the system produces entropy. To depict the utilizable exergy between water and air, exergy of each working fluid along the tower are presented. The results show that water exergy decreases continuously from top to bottom. On the other hand, air exergy is expressed in terms of convective and evaporative heat transfer. Exergy of air via convective heat transfer initially loses at inlet and slightly recovers along the flow before leaving the tower. However, exergy of air via evaporative heat transfer is generally high and able to consume exergy supplied by water. Exergy destruction is defined as the difference between water exergy change and air exergy change. It reveals that the cooling processes due to thermodynamics irreversibility perform poorly at bottom and gradually improve along the height of the tower. The results show that the lowest exergy destruction is located at the top of the tower.