Abstract
The use of the Maisotsenko cycle (M-Cycle) in traditional wet cooling towers (TWCTs) has the potential to reduce the costs of electricity generation by cooling water below the inlet air’s wet-bulb temperature. TWCTs cannot provide sufficient cooling capacity for the increasing demand for cooling energy in the power and industrial sectors—especially in hot and wet climates. Due to this fact, an experimental system of an M-Cycle cooling tower (MCT) with parallel counter-flow arrangement fills was constructed in order to provide perspective on the optimal length of dry channels (ldry), thermal performance under different conditions, and pressure drops of the MCT. Results showed that the optimal value of ldry was 2.4 m, and the maximum wet-bulb effectiveness was up to 180%. In addition, the impact of air velocity in wet channels on the pressure drops of the novel fills was also summarized. This study confirms the great potential of using the M-Cycle in TWCTs, and provides a guideline for the industrial application and performance improvement of MCTs.
Highlights
The traditional wet cooling tower (TWCT) is considered to be one of the key components of electricity generation systems, as well as an important factor affecting the total efficiency of thermal power plants [1,2]
It can be seen that the M-Cycle cooling tower (MCT) achieved the effective pre-cooling of the primary air in the dry channels, and reduced the water temperature below the wet-bulb temperature of the primary air
The outlet water temperature of the MCT seemed to be higher than that of TWCTs; the results showed that the MCT obtained a lower outlet water temperature
Summary
The traditional wet cooling tower (TWCT) is considered to be one of the key components of electricity generation systems, as well as an important factor affecting the total efficiency of thermal power plants [1,2]. The outlet water temperature of TWCTs remained limited by the inlet air’s wet-bulb temperature, which is a major disadvantage, despite many useful methods having been proposed [9,10,11]. Due to this fact, TWCTs cannot provide cooling water with a sufficiently low temperature to meet the increasing demand for cooling energy in the power and industrial sectors—especially in hot and humid conditions. If the application of the M-Cycle in TWCTs can cool the water approaching the inlet air’s dew-point temperature, it may be one of the most useful methods to improve the thermal performance of TWCTs. The analysis conducted in [20]. The potential of using the M-Cycle in water-cooling applications was evaluated
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