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3 authors, including:
Xiaohua Liu
Yi Jiang
Tsinghua University
Tsinghua University
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h i g h l i g h t s
A cross-ow closed wet cooling tower (CWCT) is experimentally analyzed.
Empirical correlations of the heat and mass transfer coefcients are obtained.
Numerical model of the CWCT is established and validated by experimental data.
Heat and mass transfer driving forces inside a cross-ow CWCT are more uniform.
Performance of a cross-ow CWCT is better than parallel/counter-ow patterns.
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 3 January 2013
Accepted 31 August 2013
Available online 10 September 2013
Closed wet cooling tower (CWCT) is an indirect-contact evaporative cooler, in which ambient air, spray
water and process water function together. In this study, a cross-ow CWCT unit based on the plateen
heat exchanger was designed and tested under various conditions in an environmental chamber. The test
results suggest that the heat and mass transfer coefcients and the cooling efciency are remarkably
affected by the temperature of the process water and the ow rates of the air, the spray water and the
process water. Heat and mass transfer coefcients were correlated based on the sensitive parameters.
Two-dimensional steady-state numerical model of the cross-ow CWCT was established and validated
by the experimental data. The numerical analyses revealed that the cross-ow CWCT could breakthrough
the structure limitation of the commonly parallel/counter-ow conguration and obtain more uniform
driving forces, which is benecial for the cooling performance. The ow pattern optimization of the
CWCT shows that air and process water in the opposite direction, spray water and the other uids in the
cross direction is the best ow pattern, which is distinct from the general knowledge of the researches.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Closed wet cooling tower
Experiment
Numerical model
Flow pattern
Cross ow
1. Introduction
Closed wet cooling tower (CWCT) has been adopted in a wide
range of application elds [1], such as refrigeration, airconditioning, manufacturing, power generation, etc. CWCT is an
indirect-contact evaporative cooler mostly based on tubular heat
exchanger structure. Three uids function together in the CWCT,
which are ambient air and spray water owing outside the tubes
and process water running inside the serpentine tubes. The principle of CWCT can be split into evaporative heat and mass transfer
process between the ambient air and the spray water, and heat
transfer process between the spray water and the process water. As
the uid inside the tubes never contact the ambient air, the CWCT
can be used to cool uids other than water and prevent contamination of the airborne dirt and impurities. Furthermore, CWCT
could operate as an air cooling tower by stopping spray water in
severe cold days which makes it possible to run continuously yearround in hospitals, schools, data centers, etc. However, the cost of
CWCT is often higher since tubular heat exchanger needs quantity
of metallic materials [2].
Series of experiments have been conducted for the fundamental
researches of the heat and mass transfer processes in CWCTs. Niitsu
et al. [3] tested the performance of the plain and nned tubes,
including the lm heat transfer coefcient and airewater mass
transfer coefcient. Experimental tests by Heyns and Krger [4]
showed the water-lm heat transfer coefcient was a function of
spray water temperature, spray water and air ow rates, while the
airewater mass transfer coefcient was a function of air and spray
water ow rates. Sarker et al. [5] assessed CWCTs with staggered
arranged bare-type or nned tubes, from the perspectives of
679
Fig. 1. The cross-ow CWCT unit: (a) the schematic diagram of the three uids; and (b) the photo from the front view.
cooling capacity, wet-bulb efciency and pressure drop. Experimental tests showed that the n-tube CWCT had better thermal
performance although the pressure drop was higher than that of
the bare-tube one. Zheng et al. [6] investigated the thermal
behavior of an oval tube CWCT under different operating conditions. The results showed that the oval tube had a better combined
thermal-hydraulic performance. Some novel CWCTs consisting of
indirect evaporative cooling stage and direct evaporative cooling
680
Table 1
Accuracies of the measuring instruments.
Parameter
Sensor
Accuracy
T-type thermocouple
Standard nozzle (GB14294)
T-type thermocouple
0.2 [ C]
1 [%]
0.2 [ C]
Rotameter
Water meter
1.5 [%]
3 [L/h]
Table 2
The experimental data of the CWCT test.
No.
Inlet parameters
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Outlet parameters
Qc kW
0.36
0.35
0.37
0.28
0.32
0.36
0.40
0.45
0.34
0.38
0.40
4.94
5.65
7.26
3.31
4.31
3.49
4.10
3.39
3.22
3.58
3.77
ta,in C
twb,in C
ts,in C
tw,in C
a kg/s
s kg/s
w kg/s
ta,out C
twb,out C
ts,out C
tw,out C
24.8
25.3
27.0
27.2
26.7
27.3
25.1
25.1
26.8
26.9
27.0
20.1
20.9
22.0
21.1
20.6
22.9
20.8
21.1
22.6
22.8
22.6
24.7
25.8
27.9
26.2
25.6
26.1
24.8
24.6
26.2
25.9
25.8
30.3
32.9
36.6
30.2
30.8
30.2
30.4
30.2
30.2
30.2
29.9
0.35
0.35
0.35
0.19
0.27
0.35
0.35
0.35
0.35
0.35
0.35
0.13
0.12
0.12
0.12
0.12
0.12
0.12
0.12
0.06
0.09
0.13
0.32
0.32
0.32
0.32
0.32
0.31
0.26
0.20
0.29
0.30
0.30
24.2
25.3
27.3
26.0
25.2
25.6
24.4
24.2
25.1
25.3
25.3
23.9
25.0
27.0
25.7
24.8
25.2
24.0
23.8
24.6
25.0
25.0
24.4
25.8
27.8
26.0
25.3
25.8
24.5
24.3
25.6
25.5
25.4
26.7
28.8
31.2
27.7
27.6
27.5
26.6
26.1
27.6
27.4
27.0
+ 20
6
5
4
-20 %
3
2
1
0
681
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Heat loss of process/spray water (kW)
water and process water was adopted. As shown in Fig. 4, the unbalance ratios of the heat gained by the ambient air and the heat
lost by the process water and the spray water are within 20%. The
average absolute unbalance ratio is 7.4%, which means the data are
reliable.
To better describe the cooling processes, some indexes are
introduced, seen in Eqs. (1) and (2). The wet-bulb cooling efciency
[5,13,16] illustrates the distance between the outlet process water
temperature (tw,out) and the ambient wet bulb temperature (twb,in),
which is the limit of the outlet process water temperature. The
cooling capacity Qc [5,12,15] presents the cooling capacity of the
CWCT unit.
Dy
vf
vx1
2
Dx1 2
vf
vx2
2
Dx2 2 /
vf
vxn
2
Dxn 2
1=2
(3)
tw;in tw;out
tw;in ta;wb
(1)
_ w tw;in tw;out
Qc cp;w m
(2)
Fig. 5. Effects of the air ow rate (a) on the CWCT: (a) wet-bulb efciency; (b) cooling capacity; (c) Km; and (d) Kh.
682
Fig. 6. Effects of the spray water ow rate (s) on the CWCT: (a) wet-bulb efciency; (b) cooling capacity; (c) Km; and (d) Kh.
0.06 kg/s to 0.13 kg/s. When the ow rate of the spray water
increased, wetting degree of the CWCT was improved and heat and
mass transfer area was expanded to a certain extent. Also, the increase of the spray water ow rate would strengthen the heat
transfer process between the spray water and the process water, so
as to take away more heat from the process water. As a result, , Qc,
and Kh increased, as shown in Fig. 6. On the other hand, the
Fig. 7. Effects of the process water ow rate (w) on the CWCT: (a) wet-bulb efciency; (b) cooling capacity; (c) Km; and (d) Kh.
683
Fig. 8. Effects of the process water temperature (tw,in) on the CWCT: (a) cooling capacity; (b) spray water inlet temperature; (c) Km; and (d) Kh.
(b)
(a)
Fig. 9. Calculated results of Eqs. (4) and (5): (a) Kh; and (b) Km.
Table 3
Comparison of the experimental parameters in literature [4,6,15,16].
Source
Flow pattern
Ga (kg/m2s)
Gs (kg/m2s)
Gw (kg/m2s)
Kma (kg/m3s)
Kha (kW/m3 K)
a (m2/m3)
Correlations
Heyns [4]
Parallel/counter
0.7e3.6
1.7e4.5
0.5e3.2
42.0e67.2
24
Zheng [6]
Parallel/counter
2.5e5.0
1.2e3.2
2.8e5.3
2.7e5.0
23.9e60.4
31
0.11e0.19
Shim [15]
Faco [16]
Parallel/counter
Parallel/counter
1.2e4.2
0.7e2.4
1.1e3.3
0.3e1.9
0.9e4.8
0.6e1.1
6.6e21.5
1.6e4.3
18.2 31.4
5.5e17.5
33
25
e
0.2e0.65
Present study
Cross
1.3e2.4
1.1e2.3
1.1e1.8
10.3e19.0
30.8e45.0
790
0.28e0.46
0.35 0.3
ts
Kh 470G0.1
a Gs
Km 0.038G0.73
G0.2
a
s
Kh 350.3(1 0.0169ts)G0.59
G1/3
a
s
0.977
Km 0.034Ga
e
Kh 700.3(s/1.39)0.6584
Km 0.1703(a/1.7)0.8099
0.547
Kh 31.79Gs0.238Gw
Km 0.00154t0.471
G0.694
G0.512
w
a
s
684
(b)
(a)
Fig. 10. Comparison with literature [4,6]: (a) Kha; and (b) Kma.
by the air and process water states, it rose with the growth of the
process water temperature, as shown in Fig. 8(b).
3.5. Comparison with experimental results from previous studies
Kh 31:79G0:238
G0:547
s
w
(4)
(5)
685
Fig. 12. Comparison of the calculated values and the experimental results of the cross-ow CWCT: (a) the variance of the air humidity ratio; and (b) the variance of the temperature
of the process water.
_ s hs
_ a vha 1 vm
_ w vtw
m
m
cp;w
0
L
vx
H vz
H vz
(6)
Mass conversion equation of the spray water and the air is given
_s
_ a vda 1 vm
m
0
L vx
H vz
(7)
Heat transfer between the spray water and the process water
driven by the temperature difference between them is shown as:
Table 4
Simulated condition of the cross-ow CWCT.
ta,in C da,in kg/kg tw,in C a kg/s s kg/s w kg/s KmFm kg/s KhFh kW/K
0.0136
30.3
(8)
vda
Km Fm
de da
_ aL
vz
m
(9)
vha
K 0 Fm
vda
h
t ta r
_ aL s
vz
vz
m
(10)
The Lewis factor or Lewis relation Lef could be dened to indicate the relation between the heat and mass transfer in an evaporative process [21e23]. The denition of Lef is as follows:
Lef
K 0h
Km cp;m
(11)
i
vha
Km Fm h
vha
Km Fm
1
$Lef he ha r
1 de da
_ aL
Lef
vz
m
(12)
as
(13)
by:
27.2
vtw
Kh Fh
t ts
_ wL w
vz
cp;w m
0.19
0.12
0.32
0.365
1.17
ta ta;in ;
da da;in ;
ha ha;in ;
z 0
(14)
ts jx0 ts jxH
(15)
tw tw;in ;
(16)
z L
686
Fig. 13. Simulated eld distribution of the cross-ow CWCT: (a) the air wet-bulb temperature; (b) the spray water temperature; (c) the process water temperature; (d) the
temperature difference between the spray water and the process water; and (e) the temperature difference between the spray water and the air (wet-bulb).
Fig. 14. Simulated temperatures of the x sections: (a) x 0.05H; (b) x 0.5H; and (c) x 0.95H.
687
Fig. 15. (a) Parallel/counter-ow CWCT conguration; and (b) simulated temperatures.
z axis and assume that the heat and mass transfer between each
two control volumes could be ignored, which means the performance of the spray water is only affected by the air and the process
water inside the volume. If the inlet temperature of the spray water
is lower than those of the process water and the air (wet-bulb),
spray water will absorb heat from both the uids when falling
along the x axis. As a result, the spray water temperature will go up
until it gains the same heat from the process water as the heat
released to the air. Vice versa, when the inlet temperature of the
spray water is higher than those of the other uids, spray water will
discharge heat to the air and the process water until it transfers the
same quantity of heat from the process water to the air. In this way,
there is an equilibrium temperature of spray water in each control
volume, which is somewhere between the temperatures of the air
and the process water, determined by the heat and mass transfer
ability of the CWCT. As shown in Fig. 13(b), on the bottom of the
CWCT, the spray water temperature barely changes along the way,
which means it already reaches the equilibrium temperature.
Fig. 14 shows the temperatures of the three uids at the sections
of x 0.05H, x 0.5H and x 0.95H, which represent the states of
the spray water from the inlet to the outlet. It can be observed from
Fig. 14(c) that the equilibrium temperature rises from the air inlet to
the process water inlet. Since there is only one sink at the outlet,
spray water of different control volumes with different
688
Kh
Kh0
Km
L
Lef
_
m
Qc
r
t
W
Greek symbols
G
spray water ow per unit breadth (kg/m s)
D
change of or difference between parameters
689
[21] P.F. Li, Y.Y. Li, J.E. Seem, Modelica-based dynamic modeling of a chilled-water
cooling coil, HVAC&R Res. 16 (1) (2010) 35e38.
[22] T. Kusuda, Humidity and Moisture: Measurement and Control in Science and
Industry, Calculation of the Temperature of a Flat-plate Wet Surface under
Adiabatic Conditions with Respect to the Lewis Relation, Reinhold Publishing,
New York, 1965.
[23] J.C. Kloppers, D.G. Krger, The Lewis factor and its inuence on the performance prediction of wet-cooling towers, Int. J. Therm. Sci. 44 (2005)
879e884.