CFD analysis of pre-cooling water spray system in natural draft dry cooling towers

摘要

CFD analysis of a wind tunnel with a single spray nozzle was conducted for the water spray system in the natural draft dry cooling tower (NDDCT) built at the University of Queensland. The CFD model was validated with the experiment results. The comparison of pre-cooling performance between the vertical arranged nozzle (VAN) and the horizontal arranged nozzle (HAN) shows that the VAN has better performance than the HAN within the inlet air velocity (nu(a)) ranges (0.8-1 m/s) of the NDDCT during summer season. The impact of several physical parameters of the continuous phase on the maximum fully evaporated water mass flow (m(maxew)) with the VAN was also conducted. The results show that m(maxew) witnesses a decrease with the increasing of nu(a) from 0.8 m/s to 1 m/s. The ambient air temperature and the relative humidity have significant impact on m(maxew). The increasing of turbulence intensity could improve m(maxew) by enlarging spray coverage area. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.