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.
Highlights
Some areas are rich in coal resources but lacking in water resources
Goodarzi [13] established a new stack configuration for a dry-cooling tower and found that the cooling performance could be increased by 9% at a wind speed of 10 m/s according to numerical simulation
The numerical results show that the air flow rate and heat transfer rate of the tower can be increased maximally by 61.7% and 15.1%, respectively, when eight wind deflectors are arranged at the bottom of the cooling tower
Summary
Some areas are rich in coal resources but lacking in water resources. Air-cooling systems are widely used to help conserve water, especially in areas where water is scarce. An air conditioning system was modeled in TRNSYS software [1] for energy and water conservation; the results showed the benefits of optimizing the control strategy and cooling tower configuration with a maximum energy savings and water reduction of 10.8% and 4.8%, respectively [2]. Significant conservation is obtained by applying an indirect air-cooling tower as shown in References [3,4]. The indirect dry-cooling tower removes heat due to the natural buoyancy generated by heated air near the radiator; the thermal performance of the radiator is substantially affected by environmental factors, especially crosswind and temperature. Gao et al [5] investigated the thermal performance of a wet-cooling tower with different filling layout patterns under windless and 0.4 m/s crosswind conditions, respectively, Appl.
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