Abstract
In recent years, the steel-truss natural draft dry cooling technique has received attention owing to its advantages in better aseismic capability, shorter construction period, and preferable recycling. For cooling towers generating the draft force of air flow, its configuration may impact the thermal and flow performance of the steel-truss natural draft dry cooling system. With regard to the issue, this work explored the thermal and flow characteristics for the steel-truss natural draft dry cooling systems with four typical engineering tower configurations. By numerical simulation, the pressure, flow, and temperature contours were analyzed, then air mass flow rates and heat rejections were calculated and compared for the local air-cooled sectors and overall steel-truss natural draft dry cooling systems with those four tower configurations. The results present that tower 2 with the conical/cylindrical configuration had slightly lower heat rejection compared with tower 1 with the traditional hyperbolic configuration. Tower 3 with the hyperbolic/cylindrical configuration showed better thermo-flow performances than tower 1 at high crosswinds, while tower 4 with the completely cylindrical configuration appeared to have much reduced cooling capability under various crosswind conditions, along with strongly deteriorated thermal and flow behaviors. As for engineering application of the steel-truss natural draft dry cooling system, the traditional hyperbolic tower configuration is recommended for local regions with gentle wind, while for those areas with gale wind yearly, the hyperbolic/cylindrical integrated cooling tower is preferred.
Highlights
In some thermal, nuclear, and solar power stations, dry-cooling systems with natural ventilation (NDDCS) have obtained extensive application because of their prominent water-saving superiority [1,2]
This research will disclose the thermo-flow characteristics of the steel-truss NDDCSs with four common practical tower configurations, which may provide some theoretical suggestions for the thermal design of steel-truss natural draft dry cooling systems
These four steel-truss NDDCSs had the same dimension of air-cooled heat exchangers (ACHE) and the same height (96.6 m) and outlet diameter (61 m) as cooling tower
Summary
Nuclear, and solar power stations, dry-cooling systems with natural ventilation (NDDCS) have obtained extensive application because of their prominent water-saving superiority [1,2]. Compared with cooling systems with concrete towers, the steel-truss NDDCS shows better aseismic capability, shorter construction period, and preferable recycling [3]; its cooling performance with various typical tower configurations in engineering has not yet been revealed. Given this situation, this research will disclose the thermo-flow characteristics of the steel-truss NDDCSs with four common practical tower configurations (more details in Section 2.1), which may provide some theoretical suggestions for the thermal design of steel-truss natural draft dry cooling systems. This work may offer some theoretical support for thermal design of the steel-truss NDDCS by filling the corresponding gap
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