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Wind Effects on Air Cooled Condensers (Part 1):

Determination of Model Validation Conditions
Ryan Parker1, Rachael Larson1, Bruce White2
1
Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Eng., Graduate Researcher, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA
2
Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Eng., Professor Emeritus, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA
email: ryparker@ucdavis.edu, rclarson@ucdavis.edu, brwhite@ucdavis.edu

ABSTRACT: Air-Cooled Condensers are known to be susceptible to high-speed crosswinds, however, the cause for
performance degradation is not well understood. To address this issue a three part investigation utilized a full-scale field study
along with wind-tunnel and computational fluid dynamics modeling to investigate the performance changes caused by cross-
winds. This paper investigates the agreement between three wind velocity sensors and presents a portion of the field study
results that will be used to validate the wind-tunnel and computational fluid dynamics models. The results include wind
conditions that cause the fans to exhibit non-uniform flow distributions of varying severity and may provide insight into the
mechanisms causing performance degradation.
KEY WORDS: Air-Cooled Condenser; Wind Screens; Field Study; Wind-Tunnel; Computational Fluid Dynamics; Model
Validation, Boundary Layer; Flow Field.

Figure 1: Aerial View of Study Power Plant. The Air-Cooled Condenser is the rectangular structure located in the lower center
of the photograph, with storage tanks to the south and south-east.

1 INTRODUCTION
Air-Cooled Condensers (ACCs) are gaining popularity for large-scale power production as an alternative to traditional water-
cooled condensers in an effort to reduce water consumption, as cooling for thermo-electric power plants accounts for as much as
41% of all U.S. fresh water use [1]. It is known that adverse wind conditions, including wind speeds above 6 m/s, cause cooling
inefficiencies in ACCs and increased wear on mechanical components. An ongoing three-year research project funded by the
California Energy Commission (CEC) is investigating the effects of wind on the thermal performance of ACCs with a one-year
field study of an existing 18 cell ACC at a 350 MW combined cycle power plant (seen in Figure 1), a wind-tunnel study (University
of California Davis), and a high fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model (Senta Engineering). Test cases of the CFD
and wind-tunnel study will be compared to analogous full-scale conditions and measurements to show flow similarity in the
models, which can then be used to investigate wind effects at conditions not available in the full-scale field study. Ideal comparison
cases involve full-scale measurements during periods of continuously steady upstream wind conditions that can be simulated
computationally and experimentally. The local wind environment, as defined by speed and direction, at the study plant site can be
examined using one-minute resolution readings from an on-site sensor and two National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS) weather stations fortuitously located on either side and within 15 km of

14th International Conference on Wind Engineering – Porto Alegre, Brazil – June 21-26, 2015
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the power plant. This paper focuses on the development of a methodology for determining and verifying appropriate wind
measurements for use as boundary conditions of comparison cases in the wind-tunnel study and CFD model.

Figure 2.Typical ACC Cell. Steam enters the air-cooled condenser from the top (blue pipe), then flows downward through the
heat exchanger tubes, condensing before being captured in pipes at the base of the heat exchangers. Vertical axis fans force air
upward across the heat exchanger. Copyright © 2015. SPX Cooling Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with
permission by SPX Cooling Technologies, Inc. for educational purposes only.

2 BACKGROUND
An Air-Cooled Condenser consists of a group of cells, each containing an axial flow fan that pushes air vertically, upwards and
across finned-tube heat exchangers which form an A-frame structure above the fan, as depicted by Figure 2. The fans are on the
order of 10 meters in diameter, and the inlet to the fan is typically one and a half fan diameters or more above the ground, depending
on the overall size of the ACC. It has been observed that high speed winds can have a negative impact on the thermal performance
of the ACC by decreasing the total flow of air through the fans, which in turn decreases the cooling capacity. Additionally, cyclic
loading and unloading of the fan blades caused by separated flow conditions can increase wear on mechanical components. High
winds also may increase the occurrence of recirculation: hot exhaust gases from the ACC are re-entrained by shedding vortices
on the leeward side and circulated back through the ACC an additional time. Many power plants employ mitigation methods to
reduce the effects of the worst wind conditions; however, the effectiveness of these methods and the full impacts of ambient wind
are not well understood [2]. One common wind mitigation method is the use of porous wind-screens that extend from the fan deck
downward toward the ground, while other methods include solid walls built in a cruciform that start from the ground and extend
midway up to the fan inlet. The power plant currently being studied has retractable wind-screens installed along the majority of
the outside perimeter of the ACC which can be extended one-third of the way from the fan deck downward toward the ground.

Table 1: Field Study Installed Sensors

Type Number of Sensors
Wind Speed and Direction 3
Incoming Air Velocity to Fans 16
Cell Interior Pressure 7
Air Temperature inside cells 18
Exterior Temperature 2
Fan Motor Current 9
Fan Shaft Speed 1
Blade Loading Force 6
Wind Screen Position 1

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3 SOURCES OF WIND DATA

On-site sensors
A total of 66 sensors were installed at the full-scale power plant collecting information relative to the aerodynamic and thermal
performance of the ACC, as seen in Table 1. The sensors report one-second average readings (from 1 millisecond samples), and
these readings were averaged over one-minute for general analysis. The installed sensors include two separate sets of anemometers
and weather vanes, the primary anemometer (CA1) is located on top of a storage tank southwest of the ACC at a height of 11.7
m, and a secondary anemometer (CA2) is attached to the west side of the ACC at a height of 6.4 m. Both of these sensors are
located within the plant boundaries and are partially blocked from northeasterly winds by plant buildings. Additionally, each
individual fan of the 18 in the ACC is capable of producing an air flow on the order of 700 m3/s (approximately 104 m3/s total)
which causes acceleration of the local flow that may affect the speed and direction readings of low velocity wind at on-site wind
sensors (See Section 3.5). For this study, the secondary anemometer’s location is less well suited for describing the general wind
environment due to blockage effects; and, therefore CA1 is used for the majority of the analysis.

Figure 3: Wind distribution comparison of one-minute average wind observations

collected at each site during 2014 corrected to a height of 10m.

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Correlation with off-site meteorological data: NOAA ASOS sensors

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) maintains the Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS),
a network of more than 900 weather sensors primarily located at airports throughout the United States. Two ASOS sites are
fortuitously located near the study power plant; 14 km to the west is MacArthur Airport, ID: KISP (MAA), and 6 km to the east
is Brookhaven Airport, ID: KHWV (BA). Both of these stations report weather information in one-minute intervals. The
Brookhaven Airport (Brookhaven) and MacArthur Airport (MacArthur) wind data were used as ambient wind conditions, as it is
important to include off-site wind measurements to verify the true undisturbed wind direction and provide wind speed ranges
comparable to on-site sensors.

Figure 4. Comparisons of one-minute average direction, showing agreement of simultaneous direction readings for observations
collected throughout 2014 at a height of 10m. The dashed line indicates a perfect correlation of the two direction datasets.
The wind distribution for the study duration recorded at the primary on-site sensor is shown in Figure 3 and shows evidence of
the northeast blockage of the primary on-site sensor when compared with wind readings from off-site sensors at the Brookhaven

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and MacArthur airports. While the wind roses from the off-site sensors show similar features, the primary on-site sensor wind
rose shows less agreement in both wind frequency and wind-speed magnitude. Due to the relatively flat terrain surrounding the
subject power plant, the NOAA weather stations may be useful to estimate the uncertainties of the on-site anemometers and
describe the far-field wind conditions useful as boundary conditions for the wind-tunnel and CFD studies.

Figure 5: Comparison of one-minute average velocity, showing agreement of simultaneous velocity readings for observations
collected throughout 2014 at a height of 10m. The dashed line show perfect correlation of the two velocity data sets.
Comparison between NOAA stations
Comparisons of wind speed and direction readings from Brookhaven and MacArthur airports show periods of reasonably
positive correlation which supports the assertion that the wind is often relatively uniform over the area between the weather
stations. For the duration of the one-year study, the wind speed (R=0.691 ± 0.001) is more correlated than the wind direction
(R=.670 ± 0.002), but both show reasonable agreement. This allows the wind velocity readings from the two NOAA sensors to be
used to investigate the biases of the on-site sensors during periods of approximately steady approach wind from the west and

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southwest directions. Figure 4 shows the overall directional correlation between the two NOAA stations, and a comparison with
the primary on-site sensor, for the duration of the field study. In Figure 4, the color indicates the number of repeated readings that
were recorded for each combination of wind direction to provide more detail than is possible with a simple scatter plot.
Comparison of on-site sensor to NOAA stations
Comparisons between the on-site sensors and the data from the two NOAA stations show a directionally dependent correlation,
with the strongest agreement observed when the wind direction ranges from the approximately 225° to 315°. Overall the primary
sensor show more correlation with the Brookhaven airport wind data than the MacArthur airport wind data, as was expected due
to the closer proximity, with direction readings showing R=0.510 and velocity R=0.347. The primary on-site sensor showed an
absence of wind from the north-east, and further shows a bias for wind from the north-west, as may be observed in Figures 3 and
4. There is also noticeable bias in the direction readings from the primary on-site sensor to record winds from the south-southeast,
i.e., the enhanced vertical line at approximately 150°, and the horizontal scatter at 190°, seen in Figure 4b. These directional biases
are mostly explained by the site-specific geometry and location of the sensor (see Figure 1), and this illustrates the necessity of
the off-site wind measurements to understand the upstream wind conditions.
Velocity Comparisons
Due to the distance between the study plant and the NOAA weather stations it was expected that correlations of one-minute
directional readings would show better correlation than velocity readings of the same period. Figure 5 shows the nature of these
velocity correlations for several combinations of the wind monitoring systems, where the color indicates the number of records of
velocity readings at that condition. One may observe from the figure that the velocity readings taken at the two NOAA stations
show an overall strong agreement, as do the velocity readings from the two on-site sensors. Due to the proximity of Brookhaven
Airport to the study plant, it is used as a comparison to both on-site wind sensors in Figure 5 (b) and (d); both of these comparisons
show a trend of velocity readings that are higher on-site than at Brookhaven, and this decreases with increasing wind velocity.
This velocity difference is likely a result of local acceleration caused by the ACC as described in Section 3.1. The most notable
shift is for periods of calm wind as recorded by Brookhaven, at this condition the Primary On-Site sensors indicates an
approximately 2 m/s wind, while the Secondary sensor shows a 4 m/s wind. This is consistent with the ACC fans running during
calm periods, and the decrease in their effect with the increase in wind velocity is expected as the increase of flow momentum due
to the fans becomes a smaller portion of the overall energy in the wind. The greater velocity shift in the Secondary On-Site sensor,
in addition to the directional bias, substantiated the conclusion that it was an unreliable indicator of the true on-site wind conditions.
The increase in recorded velocity has been seen in wind-tunnel tests of a scale model of the study power plant as seen in the
summary Figure 6. This figure indicates both the acceleration factor due to the curvature of the tank, on which the primary
anemometer is located, and the induced velocity caused by the operation of the ACC fans. Data is not present for South and South-
East wind directions because the model scale did not allow for a full rotation in the wind-tunnel while still achieving flow
similarity.

Primary Anemometer Acceleration Factors
2

1.8
†
(Tank Present / No Tank)
Mean Velocity Ratio 

1.6

1.4

1.2 ACC Fans On
ACC Fans Off
1

0.8

0.6
0 45 90 135 180 225 270 315 360
North  North 
Wind Direction (Degrees)

Figure 6. Wind acceleration due to presence of tank and operation of fans. Result of testing in the University of California Davis
Atmospheric Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel.
† The large difference in mean velocity ratio seen with the ACC fans operating for an incoming wind of 45° suggests there is a
major change in the flow-field for this condition.

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4 METHODOLOGY FOR FINDING TEST PERIODS

Desired Wind Characteristics
An essential understanding of wind-dependent performance of the ACC will be gained from comparison of the full-scale data
using the most accurate comparison to the wind-tunnel and CFD models. This requires full-scale wind periods with consistent
velocity and direction in order to more closely mimic the testing scenarios of the models. Fundamental differences in flow through
and around the ACC are expected for different horizontal wind speeds approaching at 90° to the main ACC axis, corresponding
to winds from approximately west (265°) in this study. The focus is on the investigation of incoming undisturbed approach wind
speeds that are above, below, and approximately equal to the nominal 6 m/s vertical inlet speed of the ACC fans (based on design
conditions for the fan installation). Of particular interest for this study are constant wind speeds above 6 m/s as these are the speeds
most likely associated with the negative effects of horizontal crosswind flow on ACCs. These cases are also the most difficult to
locate and extract from the complete set of full-scale wind data since the higher speed wind occurs less frequently and often
exhibits more variability in speed and direction. Moreover, wind coming from the northwest to south directions may provide the
best modeling comparison and therefore is preferable due to the mostly unobstructed approach to the ACC (See Figure 1 and
Figure 3).
Time periods that showed the greatest agreement in wind direction between the NOAA sensors and the on-site sensor were
chosen for primary investigation. Attempts were made to time-shift the data from the airports to determine probable velocity at
the study site, however, the required time shifts were on the order of 30 minutes and this was considered unreliable for small
velocity variations, proving useful only for confirming velocity trends of 5 minutes or more. Instead it was decided to use wind
periods that showed the greatest agreement in directionality between all three sensors, and the present study was restricted to the
best 50% of all wind periods (lowest standard deviation between sensors) in order to eliminate any periods with large changes in
weather patterns. For the remaining periods, the approach wind variability can be estimated from the changes in one-minute
average velocity and direction, and then refined by using the 5-second gust reported by the NOAA stations and RMS wind
velocities calculated from the high frequency on-site anemometer data. The periods in which the wind speed and direction exhibit
statistically stationary behavior for longer than five minutes suggests that the wind environment local to the plant may have
achieved a steady state of sorts and these periods will be used for all analysis in this paper. For comparison cases that include a
large number of samples after all filtering criteria is applied, the minimum time window for an individual testing period was
increased (beyond 5 minutes) to utilize periods that were likely to have achieved a higher degree of steady-state. For the purpose
of this study wind periods investigated are restricted to an approximately west wind, 265° ± 20°, with velocity variability ± 0.5
m/s from the stated nominal wind speed, as measured by the primary on-site wind sensor. An investigation was also conducted
using the direction readings from Brookhaven Airport and velocity from the primary on-site sensor, and the results were
qualitatively similar to those presented in Section 5. The selected wind periods are then matched to simultaneous measurements
of plant performance to determine their validity in use as wind-tunnel and CFD model comparison cases.
Plant Characteristics
Ideal validation cases require that the ACC operate at comparable capacities. Special care must be taken to ensure consistent
fan operation and that discrete test periods of similar wind conditions show agreement in performance demands (steam loading
etc.) placed on the ACC. Additionally, large differences in ambient temperature, the presence of precipitation, or unusual weather
will all affect the operation of the ACC and should be avoided if possible. For this study, validation cases were chosen when all
the ACC fans were operating at constant full speed. Wind-screens are either in the fully-extended or fully-retracted position:
however, the majority of the field study was conducted with fully-extended screens and therefore more data is available for that
position. For test periods that showed similar wind conditions, the inlet flow velocities for the fans and cell static pressures were
compared to verify that each period showed similar operational characteristics. Differences in far-field wind conditions that result
in differences in flow distribution through the ACC fans, or changes in static pressures within the cells, will provide insight into
the effects of wind on the overall performance and are the focus of Section 5.

5 RESULTS
The most instrumented ACC cells were that of Fan 2.4 and 3.4, which are the 4th fans from the north in the second and third
ACC streets from the east, of the 3 streets of 6 cells in the ACC. For a west wind these fans are the outer and one-row in fans,
which often show the greatest signs of wear from crosswind flows [2]. Each of these fans have 8 incoming flow velocity sensors
arranged in two concentric circles as shown in the legends of Figure 7 and Figure 8. Additionally Fan 3.4 has 4 single point static
pressure sensors and pressure rings are installed to estimate plenum pressure in the cells of Fan 3.4, 2.4, and 1.4 as depicted on
the right side of Figure 9. Each of the figures depicting a certain set of wind speed and screen position include dashed vertical
lines that indicate a change in sampling period (i.e. two or more separate time intervals are presented). Each individual period met
the same requirements for the quality of the incoming wind and the periods have been aggregated together into a single plot for
ease of use. In general very consistent performance of the ACC fans can be seen for similar wind conditions despite sometimes
occurring months apart during the testing phase. This addresses the robustness of the data for use as comparison cases for wind-
tunnel and CFD modeling.

14th International Conference on Wind Engineering – Porto Alegre, Brazil – June 21-26, 2015
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Fully Retracted Screens, 3 m/s West Wind

The goal of the present study is to assess the effectiveness of the use of windscreens in ACCs. In order to understand the
differences the first case to be examined is a comparatively low speed (3 m/s) with the windscreens in the fully retracted position,
to show the performance in the absence of windscreens. It is generally acknowledged that ACCs operating in locations with only
low cross-wind velocity do not need windscreens and therefore performance should be close to design conditions. Looking at the
air velocity data for both Fan 3.4 and Fan 2.4, in Figure 7 and Figure 8, it can be seen that all portions of the fans are operating at
or above the 6 m/s installed design condition. Sensors 31F and 35F both show elevated vertical flow compared with the other
sensors, and it is possible this is due to the rotational direction of the blade increasing the relative velocity and resulting in increased
lift for locations where the blade is advancing into the wind. This phenomena is consistent among the time samples. All pressures
in the cells are approximately 55 ± 10 Pa, and show very close agreement for relative pressure changes. This set of figures can be
taken to be approximately nominal operational conditions for comparison to other screen configurations and wind conditions.

Figure 7: Fan 3.4 Incoming Air Velocity

Fully Retracted Screens at a 3 m/s Wind

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Figure 8: Fan 2.4 Incoming Air Velocity

Fully Retracted Screens at a 3 m/s Wind

(Note: Legend not to scale)

Figure 9: Gage Pressure Readings in Cells 3.4, 2.4, and 1.4

Fully Retracted Screens at a 3 m/s Wind

Fully Retracted Screens, 6 m/s West Wind

One primary concern for ACC users and ACC fan manufacturers is the potential for an uneven pull by the fan such that the
blades experience cycling loading and unloading throughout a rotation, which may lead to a higher fatigue rate of the blades.

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Additionally this loading usually creates excess vibration and increases wear on the fan gearbox and, to a lesser extent, the entire
superstructure of the ACC fan cell. This uneven loading phenomenon was evident for wind speeds of 6 m/s with the screen
retracted, seen in Figure 10, as evidenced by the large range of incoming wind velocities experienced by different portions of the
fan. For this wind condition the fan experiences low flow in the windward half, with sensor 31F at times reporting negative values
which indicates a flow reversal. There is also slightly elevated flow in the leeward half. The fan rotates in the clockwise direction
when view from above (the orientation of the legend for all figures), and therefore the relative velocity of the blade with respect
to the wind is greater above sensor 31F than 28F, the incoming velocity difference between those two sensors suggests that the
blade may be stalling during a portion of the rotation. The overall sample time for this wind condition is lower than the 3 m/s wind
because the study power plant in general uses the windscreens in the fully deployed position for winds above 4 m/s and therefore
data is only available from a limited testing protocol.

Figure 10: Fan 3.4 Incoming Air Velocity

Fully Retracted Screens at a 6 m/s Wind
Fan 2.4 is less affected for this higher approach speed wind case than Fan 3.4, presumably due to the shielding provided by the
upwind uptake of air by Fan 3.4. However, compared to the 3 m/s case, the overall flow velocity is observed to be reduced
(Average vertical flow of 6.34 m/s here vs 6.78 m/s previously) and portions of the fan flow-field are consistently lower than the
nominal flow rate vertically through the fans, as seen in Figure 11. Pressures within each of the cells are noticeably elevated (An
average of 88 Pa vs 54 Pa), with a slight increase in the overall spread of pressures, but this result is not very conclusive.

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Figure 11: Fan 2.4 Incoming Air Velocity

Fully Retracted Screens at a 6 m/s Wind

Figure 12: Fan 3.4 Gage Pressure Readings in Cells 3.4, 2.4, and 1.4
Fully Retracted Screens at a 6 m/s Wind
Deployed Screens, 6 m/s West Wind
The 6 m/s horizontal approach wind is strong enough to create some of the negative conditions usually associated with the
higher wind speed cases, and the performance of the unshielded ACC can be compared to that of the ACC with windscreens fully

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deployed. This comparison illustrates some of the effects of the windscreens and provide a direct comparison for wind-tunnel and
CFD models. A much larger portion of the field test was conducted with windscreens in the fully deployed position, and therefore
there is more data available for higher wind speeds in this configuration. As seen without windscreens (Figure 10), Fan 3.4 exhibits
an unequal flow pattern (Figure 13 ), with the windward side experiencing lower flow, and at times the sensors indicate that there
is flow reversal occurring. The flow reversal also was seen for a brief period with wind screens retracted, although to a lesser
extent. The overall flow velocity of Fan 3.4 is reduced compared to the fully retracted windscreen case by an average of 0.8 m/s.
Due to the somewhat extreme imbalance of Fan 3.4 at this wind and screen configuration, one might expect that Fan 2.4 would
show some signs of decreased performance as well: however, this was not the case. In Figure 14, Fan 2.4 is seen to perform
equivalently to the 3 m/s case without windscreens, suggesting that the windscreens may be protecting the fan from the higher
speed crossflow. The pressure readings in the cells (Figure 15) also suggest some further imbalance as there are three distinct
groupings that can be seen, with the pressure ring of Fan 2.4 high, and the pressure rings of the other two fans showing elevated
pressure, but to a lesser extent than Fan 2.4. The low grouping of three of the single point pressure sensors of Fan 3.4 suggests
that there may be differences in cooling potential between the three cells.

Figure 13: Fan 3.4 Incoming Air Velocity

Fully Deployed Screens at a 6 m/s Wind

14th International Conference on Wind Engineering – Porto Alegre, Brazil – June 21-26, 2015
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Figure 14: Fan 2.4 Incoming Air Velocity

Fully Retracted Screens at a 6 m/s Wind

Figure 15: Fan 3.4 Gage Pressure Readings in Cells 3.4, 2.4, and 1.4
Fully Deployed Screens at a 6 m/s Wind
Deployed Screens, 9 m/s West Wind
The only recorded wind conditions greater than 6 m/s available for comparison occurred during periods when the windscreens
were fully deployed. The variability of the wind was greater at the higher speeds, however, a total of 51 minutes of acceptable
periods with a 9 m/s wind were identified for analysis. Identifying acceptable periods required a relaxation of the allowable
gradient of the wind vector from 1 m/s/min to 1.5 m/s/min, and widening the velocity window to 9 ± 1 m/s, while holding all other

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criteria the same as the other comparison cases. Figure 16 shows that the overall variability of flow through Fan 3.4 is reduced
when compared to the 6 m/s case with windscreens, and there is no backflow recorded. However, both of the windward flow
sensors register below the nominal 6 m/s vertical flow velocity, and this is seen in sensors 33F and 35F as well. The overall
imbalance of flow is reduced compared to the 6 m/s case (Figure 13), primarily due to the higher, and consistently positive, vertical
flow at sensor 28F. Once again Fan 2.4 is operating closer to optimal, but at the 9 m/s crosswind greater imbalance of flow is seen
(Figure 17) compared to the 6 m/s case (Figure 14) due to 36F showing higher than normal flow. All the cell pressures in Figure
18 follow a very consistent trend, with the only the static pressure ring in cell 1.4 reading consistently lower than the rest of the
pressures. All of the cell pressures are elevated when compared to the nominal operational conditions.

Figure 16: Fan 3.4 Incoming Air Velocity

Fully Deployed Screens at a 9 m/s Wind

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Figure 17: Fan 2.4 Incoming Air Velocity

Fully Deployed Screens at a 9 m/s Wind

Figure 18: Fan 3.4 Gage Pressure Readings in Cells 3.4, 2.4, and 1.4
Fully Deployed Screens at a 9 m/s Wind
Results Summary
Based on the specifications for wind conditions and ACC characteristics presented above, a total of four sets of wind conditions
were selected to compare with the wind-tunnel and will be compared to the future CFD results. These wind conditions spanned
just 359 minutes of over 9,000 hours of collected wind data, illustrating the inherent challenges of analyzing field data, especially

14th International Conference on Wind Engineering – Porto Alegre, Brazil – June 21-26, 2015
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in the context of comparison to modeling data. The conditions are summarized in Table 2 and include two velocities of wind for
each screen configuration. Notably, only condition 4 has wind that consistently exceeds 6 m/s, a desired characteristic that was
only found in a wind case with the screens fully deployed. For all four conditions, the relatively low values of both direction (θ)
and velocity (V) RMS variation indicate uniform steady-state approach flow conditions.

Table 2. Summary of Wind Periods Meeting Criteria for Comparison to Physical and Numerical Models
Total
Screen θ RMS
Condition θ (deg) V(m/s) Observations V RMS (m/s)
Configuration (deg)
(minutes)
Retracted 1 275.4 3.10 192 4.34 0.22
Retracted 2 270.6 5.37 16 7.85 0.36
Deployed 3 262.3 6.21 602 9.71 0.14
Deployed 4 267.2 8.64 51 10.48 0.38

6 CONCLUSIONS
The results of this study illustrate the extreme care that must be taken with field studies in order to achieve dependable results.
The power plant was fortuitously located between two NOAA weather stations that provided reasonably reliable information on
the far-field wind conditions. The topology of the area allowed wind to be uniform over a large distance so that two weather
stations located 20 km apart experienced similar conditions. For field studies concerned with monitoring wind, sensors in multiple
locations that are properly sited will give a better overall understanding of the local wind conditions.
Despite a reasonable set of full-scale meteorological data available to correlate with on-site data, only 653 minutes of over
542,000 minutes of collected data proves useful for comparison to the physical and numerical modeling of the power plant for
wind speed consistently at 6 m/s or higher. This represents only 0.12% (1 out of 831) of approximately one year's worth of data
collection. To summarize, great care must be taken when selecting "comparable" off- and on-site wind conditions; further, the
unobstructed locations of on-site wind measuring equipment is critical to obtaining the desired correlations. This full-scale field
test illustrates the challenge of meeting these conditions. The current study was fortunate to have NOAA weather stations located
on either side (west and east) of the power plant site, thus providing this somewhat unique opportunity to analyze these three data
sets in detail.
The results of this paper include four distinct wind regimes that correspond to differences in performance of the full-scale ACC.
Identified periods from two screen positions and a total of three wind speeds form a set of wind conditions that represents a
reasonable data set for comparison with wind-tunnel and CFD studies. Through use of three available sources of wind
measurements, a description of the true approach wind was determined and resulted in test cases showing differences in velocity
distributions over the ACC fans, a key parameter of interest in the overall study.
The documentation of comparable wind conditions outlined in this paper will lead to verification of the wind-tunnel and CFD
results as useful representations of the full-scale system. This effort will allow the overall project a means to optimize ACCs
through exploration of alternative wind mitigation techniques. It is expected that this work will aid in the development of design
guidelines for future full-scale ACCs in an effort to enhance overall efficiency of power plants and reduce water use.
Part 2 of this set of papers analyzes the wind flow field in and around three ACC cells aligned normal to the flow, and will draw
upon these current meteorological data results (Part 1) in a field-to-model comparison of nearly identical conditions.

REFERENCES
[1] U.S. Department of Energy, "The Water-Energy Nexus: Challenges and Opportunities," 2014.
[2] J. S. Maulbetsch, M. N. DiFilippo, M. Owen and D. G. Kroger, "Wind Effects on Air-Cooled Condensers for Power Plant Cooling," in 14th International
Heat Transfer Conference, Washington, DC, 2010.

14th International Conference on Wind Engineering – Porto Alegre, Brazil – June 21-26, 2015

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