Open Access

ARTICLE

Spray Effect on the Thermal Performances of a Dry Cooling Tower

by Zhe Geng¹, Feng Feng¹, Shuzhen Zhang¹, Jie Li², Chengwei Liu³, Yang Li⁴, Tiantian Liu⁴, Suoying He^4,*

1 Research Institute of Intelligent Energy Technology, Shandong Hetong Information Technology Co., Ltd., Jinan, 250013, China
2 Information Office, Jinan Heating Group Co., Ltd., Jinan, 250011, China
3 Information Office, Jinan Energy Investment Holding Co., Ltd., Jinan, 250098, China
4 Shandong Engineering Laboratory of High-Efficiency Energy Conservation and Energy Storage Technology & Equipment, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, 250061, China

* Corresponding Author: Suoying He. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Advances in Thermodynamic System and Energy Conservation Technology)

Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing 2023, 19(9), 2289-2304. https://doi.org/10.32604/fdmp.2023.026707

Received 21 September 2022; Accepted 17 January 2023; Issue published 16 May 2023

Abstract

Pre-cooling the inlet air of a dry cooling tower by means of a spray can improve the tower performance during periods of high temperature. To study the spray effect on the thermal performance of natural draft dry cooling towers (NDDCTs), in this study 3-D numerical simulations of such a process have been conducted using Fluent 16.2 (a two-way coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian approach). The considered NDDCT is 120 m high and only half system is simulated due to its structural symmetry. Three different spray strategies have been investigated at a typical crosswind speed of 4 m/s, which is the most frequent wind speed. The results have shown that: (1) The three implemented spray strategies can improve the thermal performance of the studied NDDCT with a varying degree of success. In one case, the heat rejection rate can be increased by 35.2%, and the tower outlet water temperature can be decreased by 2.1°C when compared with the no spray case; (2) To improve the thermal performance of the NDDCT using a small amount of water, the design of the spray pre-cooling system must include more nozzles on the windward and fewer or even no nozzles on the leeward sides of the NDDCT.

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