The study on plume abatement and water saving of hybrid mechanical draft wet cooling tower

Abstract

Under strict environmental requirements, the mechanical draft wet cooling tower (MCT) should control the generation of plume and save water resources. In this study, the plume, water saving, and thermal performance of MCT and hybrid MCT are compared through experiments. The main experiment variables include the dry bulb temperature, the relative humidity, the circulating water flow rate, the inlet water temperature, the crosswind velocity, and the crosswind angle. Results show that the hybrid MCT can realize plume abatement and water saving, but its thermal performance will be weakened. The difficulty of plume abatement will be increased at lower ambient dry bulb temperature and higher relative humidity. With the increase of crosswind speed, it is conducive to plume abatement under the crosswind angle of 0°, while that is the opposite under the crosswind angle of 90° and 180°. The working conditions of the hybrid MCT have a great influence on the water saving rate, the water saving rate ranges from 5.9 % ∼ 14.4 % within the scope of this study. Compared to the MCT, the outlet water temperature of the hybrid MCT is increased by about 0.8 ∼ 1 ℃.