Applied Thermal Engineering 27 (2007) 910–917

www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

An exergy analysis on the performance of a counterflow

wet cooling tower
Thirapong Muangnoi a, Wanchai Asvapoositkul b,*
, Somchai Wongwises b

a
The Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Bangmod, Bangkok 10140, Thailand
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Bangmod, Bangkok 10140, Thailand

Received 23 February 2006; accepted 29 August 2006

Available online 18 October 2006

Abstract

Cooling towers are used to extract waste heat from water to atmospheric air. An energy analysis is usually used to investigate the
performance characteristics of cooling tower. However, the energy concept alone is insufficient to describe some important viewpoints
on energy utilization. In this study, an exergy analysis is used to indicate exergy and exergy destruction of water and air flowing through
the cooling tower. Mathematical model based on heat and mass transfer principle is developed to find the properties of water and air,
which will be further used in exergy analysis. The model is validated against experimental data. It is noted from the results that the
amount of exergy supplied by water is larger than that absorbed by air, because the system produces entropy. To depict the utilizable
exergy between water and air, exergy of each working fluid along the tower are presented. The results show that water exergy decreases
continuously from top to bottom. On the other hand, air exergy is expressed in terms of convective and evaporative heat transfer. Exergy
of air via convective heat transfer initially loses at inlet and slightly recovers along the flow before leaving the tower. However, exergy of
air via evaporative heat transfer is generally high and able to consume exergy supplied by water. Exergy destruction is defined as the
difference between water exergy change and air exergy change. It reveals that the cooling processes due to thermodynamics irreversibility
perform poorly at bottom and gradually improve along the height of the tower. The results show that the lowest exergy destruction is
located at the top of the tower.
 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Cooling tower; Exergy analysis; Exergy destruction

1. Introduction flow types. Moreover, they can also be classified by means of

A cooling tower is a heat rejection device. Its main func-
tion is to extract waste heat from warm water to the atmo-
sphere. Heat rejection in cooling tower is specified as
convection between the fine droplets of water and the sur-
rounding air, and also as evaporation which allows a small
portion of water to evaporate into moving air. Therefore,
the process involves both heat and mass transfer. Cooling
towers are widely used in most power plants, refrigeration
and air conditioning industries, etc [1]. They can be classified
by the movement of water and air as counterflow and cross-
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +662 470 9338; fax: +662 470 9111.
E-mail address: wanchai.asv@kmutt.ac.th (W. Asvapoositkul).
air flow into mechanical draft and natural draft types.
The analysis of cooling tower performance has been
studied and developed over the last century. Investigations
on the performance and its factors have been widely stud-
ied. Heat and mass transfer are the core principles in these
analyses. Bahaidarah [2] stated that the method generally
used for cooling tower calculation was developed by Mar-
kel over 70 years ago. The equation was presented in a dif-
ferential form known as Markel Mathematical Modeling
and was used for describing the distributions of water-
and air-conditions along the cooling tower. However, an
obvious disadvantage of Markel equation was based on
the assumptions that evaporation of water flow was
neglected in energy balance and saturated air was at the
exit. These assumptions made the results inaccurate.

1359-4311/$ - see front matter  2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2006.08.012
 T. Muangnoi et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 27 (2007) 910–917 911

Nomenclature

a air/water interfacial area per unit volume of Twb wet-bulb temperature, C

tower, m2/m3 V volume of tower, m3
A tower cross-sectional area, m2 Xair air exergy, kW
cpa specific heat of dry air at constant pressure, kJ/ Xw water exergy, kW
kg K
cpv specific heat of water vapor at constant pressure, Greek symbols
kJ/kg K q air density, kg/m3
cpw specific heat of water at constant pressure, kJ/ x humidity ratio, kgw/kga
kg K xs,w saturated humidity ratio evaluated at Tw, kgw/
G dry air mass flow rate, kg/s kga
h enthalpy, kJ/kg h relative humidity
hc heat transfer coefficient of air, kW/m2 K ww specific water exergy, kJ/kg
hd mass transfer coefficient of water, m/s wtm specific thermomechanical exergy, kJ/kg
hf,w enthalpy of saturated liquid water evaluated at wch specific chemical exergy, kJ/kg
Tw, kJ/kg l chemical potential, kJ/kg
hfg,w phase change enthalpy (hfg,w = hg,w  hf,w) at
Tw, kJ/kg Subscripts
hg,w enthalpy of saturated water vapor evaluated at 0 restricted dead state
Tw, kJ/kg 00 environment
H tower height, m a dry air
I exergy destruction, kW air moist air
Ka tower characteristic, kg/m3s conv convective heat transfer
L water mass flow rate, kg/s evap evaporative heat transfer
Lef Lewis factor, (Lef = hc/hdqcpa) exp experiment
P pressure, kPa e exit
R gas constant, kJ/kg K i inlet
s entropy, kJ/kg K pred prediction
sf,w entropy of water, kJ/kg K v water vapor
T temperature, C w water
Tdb dry-bulb temperature, C

A detailed explanation of the procedure for developing
Markel’s basic equation applied to counterflow and
cross-flow cooling towers was outlined by Baker and Shry-
ock [3]. Zubair et al. [4] investigated the performance char-
acteristics through the counterflow cooling tower. The
result showed that a majority mode of heat transfer rate
is evaporation, where it was 62.5% of the total heat transfer
rate at the bottom and about 90% of that at the top of the
tower. Since evaporation is by far the most effective factor
in cooling towers, the accuracy of the predicted conditions
are directly dependent on it. For this purpose, it is quite
common to include the evaporation term in the equations
such as that of Osterle [5] for finding the tower character-
istic ratio (KaV/L) and exit air conditions. Kloppers and
Kröger [6] expressed the equation for the tower perfor-
mance calculation using the Poppe method [7], which was
developed for actual unsaturated and supersaturated air
before exiting cooling towers. Furthermore, the influence
of Lewis factors on the performance of wet cooling towers
was proposed by Kloppers and Kröger [8]. The results
showed that it decreased when the inlet air was relatively
hot and humid. The Lewis factor is proportional to the
heat transfer rate.
Other approaches, proposed by [9–12], were based upon
the second law analysis which was more instructive in pre-
dicting loss in different designs at different locations. To
demonstrate this, the experiment with natural draft cooling
tower was done by Širok et al. [9]. The results confirm that
the low and uniform entropy generation or exergy destruc-
tion in cooling tower can be achieved when heat transfer
across the plan area is homogeneous.
One interesting feature of exergy analysis for the system
which undergoes a psychrometric process such as in cool-
ing tower operation is that the total exergy can be split into
thermomechanical and chemical components [10,11] and so
it enables one to quantify the contribution of each term on
the total exergy through the tower. Shukuya and Hamm-
ache [12] expressed that thermomechanical and chemical
exergy play an important roles in assessing the actual ther-
modynamics merit of psychrometric process application.
Until now, there is still a small number of researchers
who study and investigate the energy utilization of water
912 T. Muangnoi et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 27 (2007) 910–917

and air in cooling tower, especially via exergy analysis. For steady-state condition equation, the mass balance
Currently, little is known about the applicability of exergy equation of the amount of evaporated water into air yields
analysis for cooling tower investigation.
In the method to be predicted in this paper, a counter- dL ¼ G dx ð1Þ
flow wet cooling tower performance is predicted by using
Heat removed from water is equal to heat gained by air
heat and mass transfer between water and air to drive the
yields
solution to steady-state conditions. The second law is used
to take account of exergy distributions of water and air in G dh ¼ L dhf;w þ hf;w G dx ð2Þ
cooling tower. Investigation of the calculated results can be
used to further understand details of exergy in cooling The energy balance based on the concept of enthalpy
towers. potential in terms of heat- and mass-transfer coefficients,
hc and hd respectively, can be written both for air and water
2. Mathematical model sides. The convective mass transfer established from
Osterle [5] is shown as
In counterflow cooling tower, water flows downwards
while air flows upwards. It is assumed that the conditions G dx ¼ hd qaðxs;w  xÞ dV ð3Þ
of water and air vary only with vertical position in the
For air energy balance where hfg,w  hg,w [14],
tower. The differential section of the tower height dH and
the given boundary conditions are shown in Fig. 1. The G dh ¼ hc aðT w  T Þ dV þ hd qa dV ðxs;w  xÞhg;w ð4Þ
important assumptions of the model are as follow [13]:
After simplification of Eqs. (3) and (4) and the replacement
• Heat and mass transfer through the tower wall to the of dH = (dV)/A where H is the tower height (m) and A is
environment is negligible. the constant tower cross-sectional area (m2), the change
• Heat transfer from the tower fan to air and water is of air enthalpy and the change of humidity ratio to the
negligible. tower height are:
• Water and dry air specific heats are constant.
• Heat and mass transfer coefficients throughout the dh KaA
¼ ½Lef cpa ðT w  T Þ þ hg;w ðxs;w  xÞ; and ð5Þ
tower are constant. dH G
• Heat and mass transfer is in a direction normal to the dx KaA
¼ ðxs;w  xÞ ð6Þ
flow. dH G
• Water loss by drift is negligible.
where Lewis factor (Lef = hc/hdqcpa) is an indicator of the
• Temperatures of water and air at any cross-sections are
relative rates of heat and mass transfer in evaporative pro-
uniform.
cess [8] and is determined to be unity [5]. Ka, which is writ-
ten for hdq a, is the tower characteristic. By substitution of
dhf,w = cpwdTw in Eq. (2), the corresponding change of
water temperature on the tower height is
Air Water
G, he, ωe, Te Li, hf,w,i, Tw,i G
dT w ¼ ðdh  hf;w dxÞ ð7Þ
Lcpw
G
h + dh
For given water temperature at inlet and exit (Tw,i, Tw,e),
ω + dω L, hf,w water to air mass flow ratio (L/G), the air inlet dry-bulb
and wet-bulb temperatures (Tdb,i, Twb,i), tower cross-sec-
tional area (A), and tower characteristic (Ka), Eqs. (5)–
(7) may be solved numerically for exit conditions of both
dQ dH=dV/A air and water stream. The calculation starts at discrete
points along the tower height from bottom to top with
equal space DH. The air–water vapor thermodynamics
G, h,ω L - dL properties are calculated by equations based on ASHRAE
hf,w – dhf,w [15] and Mohiuddin and Kant [16]. The air enthalpy
change, dh, and humidity ratio change, dx, through the
tower can be obtained by solving Eqs. (5) and (6). There-
G, hi,ωi, Ti Le, hf,w,e, Te fore, dTw can be calculated from Eq. (7). The water flow
rate which is reduced continuously from top to bottom
Air Water
due to evaporation from Eq. (1) can be written as
Fig. 1. Schematic of mass and energy balance of a counterflow wet
cooling tower. LH ðjþ1Þ ¼ LH ðjÞ þ GðxH ðjþ1Þ  xH ðjÞ Þ ð8Þ
 T. Muangnoi et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 27 (2007) 910–917 913

Start

Initially prescribed flow conditions

for water and air. Input Tw,i, Tw,e,
Tdb,i, Twb,i, Li, G, A, Ka

Assume the water mass flow rate at the outlet, LH=0

For j = 1 to Jmax - 1

Hj+1 = Hj + ΔH

Calculate dh/dH from Eq. (5), where hH(j+1) = hH(j) + Δh,

Calculate dω /dH by Eq. (6), where ωH(j+1)= ωH(j)+ Δω.

Calculate the increasing water

temperature, dTw, by Eq. (7)

Tw, H(j+1) = Tw, H(j) + ΔTw,

LH(j+1) = LH(j) + ΔL

Next j

No
L (Jmax ) − Linlet ≤ ε *

Yes

End

*Convergence criteria, ε = 5 × 10-5 kg/s

Fig. 2. The flowchart of the calculation of water–air conditions in cooling tower.

Since L at the bottom (H = 0) is unknown, an initial The specific thermomechanical exergy can be written as
guess for L at H = 0 is made. An iterative calculation is [17]
required until the change in L at the top from the calcu- wtm ¼ ðh  h0 Þ  T 0 ðs  s0 Þ ð10Þ
lated value and the given value become smaller. The com-
putational procedure is outlined in Fig. 2. For an ideal gas with constant specific heat cp,
 
T P
wtm ¼ cp ðT  T 0 Þ  T 0 cp ln  Rln ð11Þ
T0 P0
3. Exergy calculation
The specific chemical exergy defined in Wark [18] is shown
Taking the analysis, the specific exergy in psychrometric as
process—such as in the cooling tower operating mechanism Xn

without the effect of kinetic and potential energy at steady wch ¼ xk ðlk;0  lk;00 Þ ð12Þ
k¼1
state—can thus be generally represented as
where xk is the mole fraction of substance k in the mixture.
w ¼ wtm þ wch ð9Þ For ideal gas mixture, the chemical potential integrated
914 T. Muangnoi et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 27 (2007) 910–917

between restricted dead state and environmental state at For determining the rate of exergy destruction I, the loss
ambient temperature T0 is given by potential of air to recover exergy supplied by water, can be
P k;0 constructed from the control-volume exergy balance equa-
lk;0  lk;00 ¼ RT 0 ln ð13Þ tion. The relation is applied at steady state conditions and
P k;00
undergoes an adiabatic process with no work delivered.
It can be also noted that the specific exergy for psychro- Assuming that air–water thermodynamics properties are
metric process w is a measure of the thermomechanical known at discrete points along the tower height, the exergy
exergy, changed from actual state to restricted dead state, destruction for each incremental tower height dH is
plus the chemical exergy, changed from restricted dead
½X w;H ðjþ1Þ þ X air;HðjÞ  ¼ ½X w;H ðjÞ þ X air;H ðjþ1Þ  þ I
|{z}
state to environment. Thus, |fflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl} |fflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl}
Total exergy entering Total exergy leaving Destroyed exergy
X
n
w ¼ ðh  h0 Þ  T 0 ðs  s0 Þ þ xk ðlk;0  lk;00 Þ ð14Þ ð20Þ
k¼1
After rearrangement, the exergy destruction for the discrete
In the wet-type cooling tower, water and air are the only height dH will be
two kinds of working fluids revealed in operation. So it is
important to write the exergy equations for both water I ¼ ½X w;H ðjþ1Þ  X w;H ðjÞ  þ ½X air;H ðjÞ  X air;H ðjþ1Þ  ð21Þ
and air for applying in the analysis. On the basis of Eq.
(14), the exergy of water Xw in environment when water 4. Performance simulation
is considered as an incompressible fluid [18] can be written
as To validate the method, some experimental data in
X w ¼ L½ðhf;w  hf;0 Þ þ vf;T ðP  P sat;T Þ Table 1 done by Simpson and Sherwood [19] is applied
to the cooling tower. The comparative results are the exit
 T 0 ðsf;w  sf;0 Þ  Rv T 0 ln h0  ð15Þ
dry-bulb temperatures (Tdb,e), and exit wet-bulb tempera-
In practice, the second term on the right side of the above tures (Twb,e). It can be noted that the error between the pre-
equation is usually neglected when compared with dicted and experimental values are within 4.0%. Thus, this
RvT0 lnh0. That is, Eq. (15) is finally becomes: model is agreed in use for predicting the conditions of
X w ¼ L½ðhf;w  hf;0 Þ  T 0 ðsf;w  sf;0 Þ  Rv T 0 ln h0  ð16Þ water and air in cooling towers. The experiment No. 1 of
Table 1 is used to depict the characteristics of water and
For the air side, the specific exergy of air wair may be con- air through cooling tower. The ambient conditions used
sidered as an ideal gas mixture composed of dry air and
water vapor, which can be deducted from Eq. (14) in envi-
Table 1
ronment. This can be written as [11] Comparison between experimental data obtained from Simpson and
wair ¼ xa ½
ha  
ha;0  T 0 ðsa  sa;0 Þ þ l
a  l
a;0  Sherwood [19] and those obtained from mathematical model and their
errors
þ xv ½
hv  
hv;0  T 0 ðsv  sv;0 Þ þ l
v  l
v;0  ð17Þ
Experiments no.
The over-bar (–) represents the mole basis. Substituting the 1 2 3 4
above equation in the form of constant specific heat cpa and Experimental conditions
cpv for Dha ¼ cpa ðT  T 0 Þ and Dsa ¼ cpa lnðT =T 0 Þ  Inlet water flow rate, Li (kg/s) 1.259 1.259 1.008 1.008
RlnðP =P 0 Þ, and, on the basis of Eq. (12), l a  l
a;0 ¼ Inlet dry air flow rate, G (kg/s) 1.187 1.187 1.265 1.250
RT 0 lnðxa =xa;0 Þ, the content of water vapor can be done sim- Inlet dry-bulb temperature, Tdb,i (C) 29.00 30.50 35.00 35.00
Inlet wet-bulb temperature, Twb,i (C) 21.11 21.11 26.67 26.67
ilarly. As a result, Inlet water temperature, Tw,i (C) 28.72 34.50 38.78 38.78
 
T Exit water temperature, Tw,e (C) 24.22 26.22 29.33 29.33
wair ¼ ðxacpa þ xvcpv Þ T  T 0  T 0 ln Tower cross-sectional area, A (m2) 1.057 1.057 1.057 1.057
T0
Tower characteristic, Ka (kg/m3s) 3.025 3.025 3.025 3.025
P xa xv
þ RT 0 ln þ RT 0 ðxa ln þ xv ln Þ ð18Þ Experimental results
P0 xa;0 xv;0 Exit dry-bulb temperature, 26.67 30.27 33.27 33.27
Writing on a mass of dry air basis when neglecting the Tdb,e,exp (C)
Exit wet-bulb temperature, 26.17 29.94 32.89 32.89
change of pressure through cooling tower (P = P0), the
Twb,e,exp (C)
exergy of air Xair becomes
 Model predicted results
T Exit dry-bulb temperature, 27.42 31.17 34.44 34.46
X air ¼ G ðcpa þ xcpv ÞðT  T 0  T 0 ln Þ
T0 Tdb,e,pred (C)
 Exit wet-bulb temperature, 26.35 30.02 33.04 33.11
þ Ra T 0 ð1 þ 1:608xÞ lnð1 þ 1:608x00 Þ=ð1 þ 1:608xÞ Tw,e,pred (C)

 Errors in predicted values

x Tdb,e,pred (%) 2.81 2.97 3.52 3.58
þ 1:608x ln ð19Þ Tw,e,pred (%) 0.69 0.27 0.46 0.67
x00
 T. Muangnoi et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 27 (2007) 910–917 915

for exergy analysis are at T0 = 25 C, P0 = 1 atm, and 0.040 30.0

x00 = 0.009923 kg/kg (50% RH). The results from the cal-

Exergy of air via convective heat transfer (kW)

culation are plotted in Figs. 3–8. 0.035

Water temperature, air temperature and humidity ratio 29.0

0.030

Dry-bulb temperature (º C)
are plotted against the height of the tower as shown in
Fig. 3. Water temperature, Tw, decreases continuously as 0.025
28.0
it flows downwards to the bottom. Air flows upwards from
the entrance at bottom and exits at top. The dry-bulb tem- 0.020 Tdb
perature of inlet air, Tdb, initially decreases and then slightly 27.0
0.015
increases after the tower height of 0.68 m (an intersection
point of Tw and Tdb). Before this point Tw is less than 0.010
Tdb. This indicates that heat flows from air to water. How- Xair,conv 26.0
ever, after the intersection point Tw is more than Tdb. 0.005
Therefore, heat flows in the opposite direction. It is known
0.000 25.0
that the water thermal energy is removed by both convec- 0.00 0.13 0.26 0.38 0.51 0.64 0.77 0.90 1.02 1.15
tive and evaporative heat transfers to air. The effect from Height of tower (m)
evaporation can be indicated in terms of air humidity ratio,
Fig. 5. Exergy of air via convective heat transfer and air temperature
x, and wet-bulb temperature, Twb. It is also noted that profiles through the cooling tower.

30.0 0.04000 1.000 0.0220

Exergy of air via evaporative heat transfer (kW)

28.0 Tw 0.03500
Tdb 0.0200
0.800
Humidity ratio (kg w/kga)

Humidity ratio (kgw/kga)

26.0 0.03000
Temperature (ºC)

0.0180
ω
Twb 0.600
24.0 0.02500
0.0160

22.0 0.02000 0.400

ω
0.0140
X air,evap
20.0 0.01500
0.200
0.0120
18.0 0.01000
0.00 0.13 0.26 0.38 0.51 0.64 0.77 0.90 1.02 1.15
Height of tower (m) 0.000 0.0100
0.00 0.13 0.26 0.38 0.51 0.64 0.77 0.90 1.02 1.15
Fig. 3. Temperature profiles of water and air, and humidity ratio profile Hieght of tower (m)
through the cooling tower.
Fig. 6. Exergy of air via evaporative heat transfer and humidity ratio
profiles through the cooling tower.
120.3 32.0
Twb, which increases continuously from bottom to top, is
120.0 always less than Tw. In this case, the approach temperature
30.0
is 3.11 C. As a result, heat still flows from water into air.
Water temperature (º C)
Exergy of water (kW)

119.7 Xw Therefore, heat transfer mode in cooling tower is domi-

28.0 nated by evaporation.
119.4 Fig. 4 shows water exergy, Xw, and water temperature.
Tw
26.0 Water exergy defined as the available energy carried by sup-
119.1 plying water decreases continuously from top to bottom. It
can be explained from the fact that water temperature
24.0 decreases from top to bottom as a result of supplying its
118.8
exergy to air. Water exergy shows that the supplying rate
118.5 22.0 is nearly constant until approaching the bottom. Eq. (16)
0.00 0.13 0.26 0.38 0.51 0.64 0.77 0.90 1.02 1.15 explains water exergy where the first two terms are known
Height of tower (m) as thermal exergy and the last is chemical exergy. Thermal
Fig. 4. Exergy of water and water temperature profiles through the exergy is the exergy associated with difference in tempera-
cooling tower. tures, and chemical exergy is the one that associated with
916 T. Muangnoi et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 27 (2007) 910–917

0.800 also indicated the minimum value of Xair,conv. After this

point, Xair,conv contained in air is able to let the thermal
0.700
energy flow into it and its Tdb increases.
0.600 Exergy of air via evaporative heat transfer—Xair,evap—
and its humidity ratio are shown in Fig. 6. Both values
Exergy of air (kW)

0.500
increase continuously along the tower. These indicate that
0.400 Xair,evap contained by air is able to let the thermal energy
flow into it.
0.300
Xair Exergy of air via convective and evaporative heat trans-
0.200 fers, Xair,conv and Xair,evap, and exergy of air (Xair =
Xair,evap
Xair,conv + Xair,evap) are plotted as a function of tower
0.100
height shown in Fig. 7. When comparing with exergy of
Xair,conv
0.000 water Xw in Fig. 4, it is noted that the values of Xw are
0.00 0.13 0.26 0.38 0.51 0.64 0.77 0.90 1.02 1.15 more than those of Xair through the tower. This means that
Height of tower (m) exergy contained in the water is able to disperse its thermal
Fig. 7. Exergy of air which is partly of those via convective and energy into the environment. Meanwhile, exergy contained
evaporative heat transfer profiles through the cooling tower. in the air is able to let the thermal energy flow into it. It is
also clearly shown in Fig. 7 that the process is dominated
by exergy of air via evaporative heat transfer.
0.120 Exergy consumption is always accompanied by entropy
generation, thus the generated entropy must be discarded
0.100 constantly from water. The generated entropy is propor-
tional to exergy destruction [9]. The exergy destruction I
Exergy destruction (kW)

0.080 represented by the difference between exergy change of

water and exergy change of air, DXw and DXair, shown in
0.060 Fig. 8. It can be described that, for example, 0.099 kW of
exergy destruction is destroyed when the tower bottom
0.040 height is changed from 0.00 m to 0.13 m. Furthermore,
another 0.073 kW of exergy destruction is also destroyed
0.020 when the tower height is changed from 0.13 m to 0.26 m,
and so on. These distributions of exergy destruction indi-
0.000 cate that these are high at bottom and gradually low at
0.13 0.26 0.38 0.51 0.64 0.77 0.90 1.02 1.15
the top. The minimum I locates at the top.
Height of tower (m)

Fig. 8. Exergy destruction values inside cooling tower. 5. Conclusion

A mathematical model for predicting the properties of

ambient humidity, h0. Because the chemical exergy at ambi- water and air along the counterflow wet cooling tower is
ent is constant, the temperature of water can be used as an based on heat and mass transfer principles. The exergy
indicator of water exergy. The process shows that water analysis is used to explain the performance of simulated
exergy at the bottom is less than that at the top. Similar ten- cooling tower. A method was presented for the prediction
dency can be held for water temperature. cooling tower performance by employing an exergy analy-
On the air side, its exergy, Xair, means that available sis. The method was validated using experimental data
energy of air to recovers or utilizes that supplied by water. from [19]. The results show that:
There are two kinds of exergy in air: exergy of air via con- Water exergy defined as the available energy carried by
vective heat transfer, Xair,conv, and exergy of air via evapo- water to be supplied decreases continuously from top to
rative heat transfer, Xair,evap. The process is described by bottom. For the air side, its exergy means the available
Eq. (19) where the first term represents Xair,conv and the rest energy of air to recover or utilize that supplied by water.
is Xair,evap. Fig. 5 shows exergy of air via convective heat There are two kinds of exergy in air, that are due to exergy
transfer and dry-bulb temperature profiles along the cool- of air via convective heat transfer and exergy of air via
ing tower. The reduction of Xair,conv and Tdb can be noted evaporative heat transfer. It reveals that exergy of air is
from the bottom to the height of 0.68 m. These correspond mainly controlled by exergy of air via evaporative heat
with the results discussed earlier in Fig. 3. In that region, transfer. Exergy destruction is high at the bottom and
heat transfer is taking place from air to water due to neg- reducing at the top. The distributions of exergy destruction
ative convection. The intersection point of Tdb and Tw indi- can be used as a guideline to find optimal potential for
cates no temperature difference; hence, no convective heat improving cooling tower performance. For example, the
transfer of air to water with the minimum Tdb value. This use of a combination of two types of filling material is
 T. Muangnoi et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 27 (2007) 910–917
chosen by placing very efficient filling material with a large
contact area at the bottom region where exergy destruction
is high, and placing a regular one at the top region where
exergy destruction is low.
One important observation from this study is that the
choice of the ambient conditions (eg. Twb, Tdb) affects the
results of exergy analysis quite strongly. Currently, work
is in progress to see the inlet conditions of air and water
effects to the cooling tower performance.
Acknowledgement
This present study was financially supported by the
Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment
(JGSEE) and the Thailand Research Fund (TRF). The
authors would like to express their appreciation to Assis-
tant Professor Sitichai Wongtanasuporn for his recommen-
dations in carrying out this research.
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