Computational fluid dynamics simulation on a thermal power plant with air-cooled condenser

Abstract

The environmental wind speed, wind direction, and surroundings of the air-cooled condenser are parameters that may affect the cooling system performance. This article concentrates on the hot air recirculation phenomenon and its dependence on ambient winds are numerically simulated using the computational fluid dynamics code, FLUENT. In this study, two different wind directions (cases A and B) and two different wind speeds are considered. Results show that the hot air recirculation increases with the increment of velocity speed. Case A has a critical wind direction angle. Wind causes an air temperature increase at the fan inlet due to hot air recirculation, resulting in the deterioration of the heat transfer performance. In case A, fan inlet temperature is about 2.2 °C higher than fan inlet temperature in case B. Heat rejection in case B is 10.5% higher than case A. Increment of the wind speed from 3 to 9 m/s leads to 5.9 °C rise in fan inlet temperature and heat rejection reduction about 27%. The effect of the hot air recirculation phenomenon occurs at 9 m/s in case A.