YEAR/SEC :IV/C BATCH NO: 01

PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF FLUIDIZED BED COOLING

TOWER
[ME6811-PROJECT WORK]
FINAL REVIEW

REGISTER No. NAME OF THE MEMBERS

731615114121 SANTHOSHKUAMR S
731615114124 SARAVANAN M
731615114135 SHREERAM M R
731615114319 REVENTHKUMAR S

SUPERVISOR
Mr. GOWRISANKAR G ME.,
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
KSR INSTITUTE FOR ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY
TIRUCHENGODE - 637215
 ABSTRACT
The objective of this study is to investigate experimentally and theoretically heat
and mass transfer characteristics of the cooling tower. These heat and mass
transfer devices are based on the evaporative cooling of water in contact with
ambient air. The working volume of the tower is filled with packing material to
increase contact between the two phases. A column – packing unit is made of
new type of packing named plastic ball. An experimental investigation has been
carried out to find out the effect of the packing material on the performance of a
Fluidized Bed Cooling Tower (FBCT). Form the experiments it is observed that the
characteristics of the packing material does have a definite effect on the
performance of FBCT. Modifications of the theoretical predictions based on the
single stage equilibrium model in the light of the present experiments help in the
predictions of the performance of the FBCT using packing material.
 INTRODUCTION
 A cooling tower is a heat rejection device, which extracts waste heat
to the atmosphere though the cooling of a water stream to lower
temperature.
 The type of heat rejection in cooling tower is termed evaporative in
that it allows a small portion of the water being cooled to evaporate
into moving air stream to provide significant cooling to the rest of
that water stream.
 Cooling towers are able to lower the water temperature more than
devices that use only air to reject heat, like the radiator in a car and
are therefore more cost-effective and energy efficient.
 Cooling towers may either use the evaporation of water to remove
process heat and cool the working fluid to near the wet bulb air
temperature or in the case of closed-circuit dry cooling towers.
 Water is transported by pump through flow regulated valve. The water flow
rate is measured by Rota meter and distributed through spray nozzles.
 Water is distributed in the form of falling films over the expanded wire mesh
fill. The air and water flow rates are measured with an orifice meter and
control value, respectively.
 The inlet temperatures are measured using thermometers. By using this
system water is directly distributed over the plastic ball packing, and the
films of falling water were uniform across the whole surface of the packing.
 The pressure drop at fill zone is measured by U- tube manometer. PT 100
type thermocouples were used to measure water inlet and outlet temperature
and measure the water temperature in fill zone area.
 All thermocouples were connected to a 12-channel digital temperature
indicator. A forced draught fan was used to provide air flow to the tower. The
air enters into tower, passes the rain zone, fill zone, spray zone and leaves
the tower.

 EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
 The tested cooling tower is a forced draft counter flow type. A line diagram
and photo of the used experimental apparatus are shown.

 The main part of the installation is the cooling tower, having 1m in height
0.3m × 0.3m in cross section.
 The front side of the column have the fibre glass arrangements up to a
height 500mm from the base of the column and the remaining three sides
of aluminium sheets for the visible purpose.
 In the present experimental work, many parameters affecting the
performance of counter flow wet cooling towers were investigated.
 In the experimental study, plastic ball packing was used as tower
packing material. This type of packing is considered as unique for film
packing.
 In this section certain calculations are made to selects the various
components for fabrication purpose as well to select the bought-out
items such as hydraulic pump, blower, heating tank with water heater
for water supply at condenser temperature into the main column
 Various specifications of instruments like U-tube manometers, water
Rota meter, Temperature sensor with multi point digital indicator to take
the temperature readings at various location.
 COMPONENTS DESIGN AND SPECIFICATION
FLOW METER
 Flow measurement is vital to many different industries such as oil,
power, water and waste treatment. These industries require that they
know exactly how much fluid is passing through a point at any given
point.
AIR BLOWER
 Blower is an important class of fluid machine, which has
characteristics of transfer of energy between continuous stream of
fluid & an element rotating about a fixed axis.
U – TUBE MANOMETER
 The simplest of the gages that is used for measuring pressure is a U –
tube manometer . The U tube needs to be vertically oriented and the
acceleration due to gravity is assumed to be known. The height ‘h’ is
the measured quantity
THERMOCOUPLE
 A Thermocouple is a sensor used to measure temperature.
Thermocouples consist of two wire legs made from different
metals. The wires legs are welded together at one end, creating a
junction
TEMPERATURE SCANNER
 Temperature is one of the most important physical parameters in
every day of life. It has the cause and effect even in human
beings and other creatures apart from machines and
manufacturing processes
 THERMAL AND STUCTURAL ANALYSIS
STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS
 It is a procedure or method followed to find and measure the effect of
external forces on the physical objects like built structure elements.
 It is used to forecast the behaviour of structure upon loads acting on them.
Design of element sizes, material to be used for structural elements is
done on the basis of structural analysis

 Degree of freedom of joints and degree of redundancy of structural

components need to be taken for analysis. Joints in a beam undergo
vertical and horizontal translation along with rotation.
 Experiment in 3D

Experimental 3d model of the cooling tower

3D Model of the Cooling Tower

Meshing of the cooling tower

THERMAL AND FLOW ANALYSIS OF THE COOLING TOWER
 Thermal analysis refers to any technique for the study of materials
which involves thermal control.
 Measurements are usually made with increasing temperature, but
isothermal measurements or measurements made with decreasing
temperatures are also possible.
 Any measuring technique can be made into a thermal analysis
technique by adding thermal control.
 Simultaneous use of multiple techniques increases the power of
thermal analysis, and modern instrumentation has permitted extensive
growth of application.
 The basic theories of thermal analysis (equilibrium thermodynamics,
irreversible thermodynamics and kinetics) are well developed, but have
to date not been applied to actual experiments to the fullest extent
possible.
HEAT FLUX OF COOLING TOWER
 Heat flux is defined as the amount of heat transferred per unit area per unit
time from or to a face. In a basic sense it is a derived quantity since it
involves, in principle, two quantities
 the amount of heat transfer per unit time and the area from/to which this
heat transfer takes place.
 In practice, the heat flux is measured by the change in temperature
brought about by its effect on a sensor of known area.
 The incident heat flux may set up either a steady state temperature field or
a transient temperature field within the sensor.
 The temperature field set up may either be perpendicular to the direction
of heat flux or parallel to the direction of heat flux.
Heat flux of the cooling tower analysed using ANSYS
TEMPERATURE DISTRIBUTION IN THE COOLING TOWER

Temperature distribution
 VELOCITY OF WATER

Velocity of water flow in the cooling tower

OVERALL PERFORMANCE OF FBCT

Overall Efficiency (CFD)

EXPERIMENTAL SETUP OF FBCT
ADVANTAGES
 The use of fluidized bed cooling tower increases the cooling rate by 50 %
compared to normal cooling tower.
 The increase in inlet temperature of water decreases the effectiveness as
same quantity of air is available for cooling for all operating temperatures of
cooling tower.
 Air as a cooling medium as a lower heat transfer coefficient than water.
 If air is used, advantage also can not be taken of the chilling effect produced
by evaporating than wet cooling tower’s are used.
 This result is reduced efficiency of water – steam.
 CONCLUSION

 In this paper the difference in overall efficiency depends on the surface contact
between the water and the packed materials
 To increase the overall efficiency a condenser can be introduced which can increase
the cooling rate up to 20%
 By using various packed materials the various efficiency can be achieved
THANK YOU