CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

The simulation of counterflow cooling tower follows the method described by Stoecker and Jones (1982). The objective is to calculate the tower NTU when the following data are known : inlet water temperature, outlet water temperature, ambient air wet bulb temperature and the ratio of water mass flow rate to air mass flow rate. 3.1 NTU Calculation Figure 3.1 shows a differential volume of a counterflow cooling tower with L kg/s of water entering from the top and G kg/s of air entering from the bottom. Neglecting water loss through evaporation, L remains constant throughout the tower. The govening equations are ( Stoecker and Jones, 1982 ): ( )

Where hc = hi = enthalpy of saturated air water tempartue, ha = enthalpy of air, Cpm = specific hear of moist air,

Combining equations 3.1 and 3.2 results in (stoek and jones, 1982) = 4.19L Where tin = water temperature entering the tower, C Tout = water temperature leaving the tower, C (3.3)

The cooling tower NTU is calculated using the procedure desribed by stoeck and jones (1982): NTU = = 4.19 del t (3.4)

Where (hi-ha)m is the arithmetic-mean enthalpy difference for an increment of tower volume

Figure 3.1 Energy exchange in differential volume of a counter flow cooling tower (Stoecke and Jones, 1982)

The solution procedure is as follows: (1) Divided the tower vertically into n control volumes (2) Calculate delT = , C

Where t1 = inlet water temperature , C T2 = outlet water temperature, C (3) Starting from the bottom of the tower, calculate ha of the air leaving each volume in the vertical direction, where the energy balance (equation 3.1) gives Ha,out = ha, in + (4.19) del T (3.5)

The enthalpy of saturated air at the water temperature is easily calculated since the water temperature at the control volume boundary is always known. At temperature t, the saturatured air entalpy is (stoecke and jones, 1982): Hi= 4.7926 + 2.568t 0.029834t2 + 0.0016657t3 Which is valid for t between 11 and 40 C (4) Calculate NTU using equation 3.4 The wet bulb temperature of the ambient air is required to calculate ha of the air entering from the bottom of the tower. It is assumed that the ambianent iar is fully saturated (3.6)

A computer program is written to calculate the NTU of any counter flow cooling tower. Using a large combination of t1, t2, t3 and L/G values which are of pratical significance, a regression equation is then obtained to reppresent the range of calculated NTU. The simplest equation is then the power equation,

( )
Where t3 is the ambient air wet bulb temperature C. A0 through a4 are regression coefficients. A corredletion is accepted when most of the errors are lower the 5%