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Article history: Simulation of cooling tower performance considering operating conditions away from design is typically
Received 12 January 2012 based on the geometrical parameters provided by the cooling tower vendor, which are often unavailable
Received in revised form 29 March 2012 or outdated. In this paper a different approach for cooling tower modeling based on equilibrium stages
Accepted 29 March 2012
and Murphree efciencies to describe heat and mass transfer is presented. This approach is validated
with published data and with data collected from an industrial application. Cooling tower performance
is simulated using ASPEN PLUS. Murphree stage efciency values for the process simulator model were
Keywords:
optimized by minimizing the squared difference between the experimental and calculated data using the
Cooling tower
ASPEN PLUS
LevenbergMarquardt method. The minimization algorithm was implemented in Microsoft Excel with
Simulation Visual Basic for Applications, integrated with the process simulator (ASPEN PLUS) using Aspen Simulation
Equilibrium stages Workbook. The simulated cooling tower air and water outlet temperatures are in good accordance with
Murphree efciency experimental data when applying only the outlet water temperature to calibrate the model. The method-
ology is accurate for simulating cooling towers at different operational conditions.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
0196-8904/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2012.03.030
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474 J.A. Queiroz et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 64 (2012) 473481
Nomenclature
F(k) sum of squared error between experimental and model e allowable difference between two consecutive itera-
prediction values tions
G humid air mass ow (kg/h) k model parameters
H[F(k)] Hessian matrix of F(k) rF(k) gradient of F(k)
I identity matrix
L water mass ow (kg/h) Subscripts
m number of data points in each sub-set i relative to component i
N number of equilibrium stages j relative to stage j
P pressure (kPa) k kth iteration
RH relative humidity (%) l lth experimental point
s search direction test relative to test data sub-set
T temperature (C) trn relative to train data sub-set
x independent variables val relative to validation data sub-set
y vapor composition on equilibrium stage
Y model output Superscripts
Y average value of the model output atm relative to ambient conditions
b
Y experimental value a relative to air stream
b control coefcient in LevenbergMarquardt method exp experimental data
Dk increment of k mod model predicted values
w relative to water stream
design results was less than 3%. Jin et al. [1] proposed a model 2. Problem statement
based on heat resistance and energy balance principles where
empirical parameters were introduced, avoiding the need to spec- When simulating a cooling water network with a process simu-
ify geometrical parameters. Rubio-Castro et al. [8] determined lator such as ASPEN PLUS there is no standard procedure for setting
optimal cooling tower design parameters and temperature proles up the cooling tower block. This means that when process alterna-
across a counter ow cooling tower by applying a rigorous heat tives are being studied or real-time optimization is being per-
and mass transfer model. Non-linear algebraic equations were formed, there is no direct way of evaluating the impact that any
solved using a discretization approach with a fourth-order Run- change in the cooling water temperature and ow or change in
geKutta algorithm. Given a set of experimental data to train the ambient air conditions has on the cooling tower performance
model, Hosoz et al. [9] suggested that applying articial neural net- and, consequently, on the process itself.
works (ANNs) for modeling the cooling tower performance avoided The aim of this work is therefore to describe a methodology that
the solution of complex differential equations. Predicted and enables the simulation of a counter ow, induced draft, cooling
experimental values had correlation coefcients in the range of tower in ASPEN PLUS. The outcome of the proposed approach is a
0.9750.994 and mean relative errors in the range of 0.894.64%. model that simulates the behavior of a real cooling tower and is
Pan et al. [10] presented a data-driven model-based assessment capable of working as a stand-alone model or be integrated into
strategy to investigate the performance of an industrial cooling a larger simulation model. It should provide grounds for optimiza-
tower. Considering 1 month test interval and based on water mass tion studies, where off-design conditions such as water and air
ow rate, water inlet temperature, air dry-bulb temperature, rela- ow variations can be simulated; debottlenecking studies, where
tive humidity and fan motor power consumption the predicted equipment limitations may be of interest as production rates are
water outlet temperature was within a 5% error band and pre- increased; and operability studies, where evolution of equipment
sented a mean square error of 0.29 C. Serna-Gonzlez et al. [11] performance can be assessed to help plant personnel troubleshoot
used mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP) techniques operations.
to evaluate the optimal conditions of a mechanical draft cooling Given a set of data consisting of water and air inlet tempera-
tower that minimize the total annual cost for a given heat load, ture, water and air inlet ow, air inlet humidity and ambient
dry- and wet-bulb inlet air temperatures and temperature con- pressure the problem then consists in determining model param-
straints on the cooling water network. Rao and Patel [12] com- eters that mimics actual cooling tower performance. Although it
pared the results obtained by Serna-Gonzlez et al. [11] with the is possible to use the model to calculate evaporation ratio and
ones achieved when applying an articial bee colony algorithm. cooling tower heat duty, only the output variables which could
Using the articial bee colony algorithm resulted in an objective be compared with the published data by Simpson and Sherwood
function value lower than the one achieved by Serna-Gonzlez [13] i.e., water and air outlet temperatures, were presented.
et al. [11] for all six case studies (improvement between 1.27% Moreover, the model was developed considering the following
and 11.17%). assumptions:
As an alternative to the abovementioned methodologies a dif-
ferent approach that does not involve the solution of differential 1. Pressure drop across the cooling tower was not considered
equations can be used to model a cooling tower operation by because the model was not used for design purposes and it
applying an equilibrium stage. While the equilibrium stage method has minor effect when compared to ambient pressure.
can hardly be used for design purposes without proper correlations 2. The operation of cooling tower was assumed as an adia-
that allow the determination of the height equivalent to a theoret- batic process.
ical plate (HETP) it is demonstrated in this work that both the out- 3. The water stream was considered to be pure as impurities
let water and air temperature predicted by the model are quite in this stream do not signicantly change equilibrium
accurate when compared to the experimental values. properties.
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J.A. Queiroz et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 64 (2012) 473481 475
4. The cooling tower was in steady-state operation. Air out (T a out, Gout, RHout)
3.2. Step 2 determination of model parameters Regarding the particular case of a cooling tower the parameter
vector (kk) to be adjusted is the number of equilibrium stages, N,
M
Once the general model representing the cooling tower has been and Murphree stage efciencies, Eff i;j . Hence, the minimization
implemented on ASPEN PLUS it is necessary to determine the model problem is subject to the following constraints:
Table 1
Comparison between the outputs of the model considering NRTL and IDEAL property methods. The number of equilibrium stages was set to 2 and Murphree stage efciencies to
1. Atmospheric pressure was kept constant at 101.3 kPa.
Inputs Outputs
RHin (%) Ta in
(C) Tw in
(C) Lin (kg/h) Gin (kg/h) Tw out
(C) Ta out
(C)
NRTL IDEAL NRTL IDEAL
Base case 80 30 37 7.5 10 29.5 29.5 32.4 32.4
+10% 88 33 41 8.3 11 33.3 33.3 35.9 35.9
10% 71 27 33 6.7 9 25.6 25.6 28.6 28.6
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476 J.A. Queiroz et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 64 (2012) 473481
J.A. Queiroz et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 64 (2012) 473481 477
Fig. 2. Algorithm for the determination of model parameters. The inner circle of the algorithm is a NLP problem whereas if the number of equilibrium stages is considered it is
a MINLP problem.
Due to the comprehensive experimental data as well as detailed A third set of data (Table 3) was used to conrm the applicabil-
information about the experimental setup the work of Simpson ity of the proposed approach to a real industrial application, which
and Sherwood [13] is often used to evaluate the appropriateness corresponded to a set of experimental data collected from an
of cooling tower models [6,19,20]. These authors published exper- industrial mechanical induced draft cooling tower. The industrial
imental data regarding the operation of two mechanical induced cooling tower with the characteristics specied in Table 4 belongs
draft cooling towers, designated by tower R-1 and tower R-2. to one of the manufacturing plants of Dow Chemical Company in
Although the ambient pressure is not mentioned in the work of Portugal. Water pumps and fan motors are equipped with xed
Simpson and Sherwood [18], taking into account the nature of speed drives so that the water and air ow rate are kept constant.
the work it is assumed that it remained approximately constant The dry-bulb temperature and relative humidity were measured
during the length of the experimental work. These two sets of pub- near the air entrance of the cooling tower with a data logger
lished experimental data are used for validating the approach pro- (Tinytag View 2 TV4500). In- and outlet water temperature are
posed in this work. both registered by an online process monitoring system in the
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478 J.A. Queiroz et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 64 (2012) 473481
Table 3
Collect plant data
Experimental and modeled values for Dows cooling tower collected during 1 month
(make sure equipment is operating in
steady state conditions) period (20 May 201120 June 2011). Air and water ow correspond to design. Air
outlet temperature was not monitored.
Experimental Outputs
Model Outputs
J.A. Queiroz et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 64 (2012) 473481 479
Fig. 4. Objective function evolution for tower R-1 for training [j] and validation Fig. 6. Objective function evolution for Dows tower for training [j] and validation
[h] sub-sets. [h] sub-sets.
Fig. 7. Water outlet temperature model predictions vs. observed value for tower R-1: (a) training [}] + validation [j] and (b) test [N]. Assuming a constant Patm of 101.3 kPa.
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480 J.A. Queiroz et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 64 (2012) 473481
Fig. 8. Water outlet temperature model predictions vs. observed value for tower R-2: (a) training [}] + validation [j] and (b) test [N]. Assuming a constant Patm of 101.3 kPa.
(a) (b)
Fig. 9. Water outlet temperature model predictions vs. observed value for Dows tower: (a) training [}] + validation [j] and (b) test [N].
Fig. 10. Air outlet temperature model predictions vs. observed value for training [}], validation [j] and test [N] in: (a) tower R-1 and (b) tower R-2. Assuming a constant Patm
of 101.3 kPa.
Table 5
Model performance parameters for the different data sets. The variable that is being analyzed is the water outlet temperature, Tw out
.
J.A. Queiroz et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 64 (2012) 473481 481
In Table 5 model performance parameters regarding outlet with a larger process model enabling a better process control and
water temperature (Tw out) are summarized. For the test data energy management when integrated with the distributed control
sub-sets of tower R-1 and R-2, respectively, RMSEtest is: 0.23; system.
0.218 and Rtest: 0.994; 0.993, as for Dows industrial cooling tower
the test sub-set RMSEtest is: 0.129 and Rtest: 0.991. The values of the Acknowledgments
model evaluation parameters indicate a good t between experi-
mental and model values for both the laboratory setup (tower R- Authors are grateful to Dow Portugal Produtos Qumicos,
1 and R-2) and the industrial application (Dows cooling tower). Sociedade Unipessoal, Lda and to Fundao para a Cincia e Tecn-
Although the model was trained using only water outlet tem- ologia, namely for the Ph.D. student support through fellowship
peratures the model performance parameters regarding air outlet SFRH/BDE/51013/2010.
temperatures (Ta out) in tower R-1 and R-2 also indicate an accept-
able t between model predictions and experimental values: References
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