Numerical Investigation of Cross-Flow Water Cooling Towers

Abstract

In this study, the performance of the forced cross-flow water cooling tower was investigated with the ANSYS CFX program. The geometric dimensions and boundary condition values of the cooling towers in the study were taken to be close to the real values. The effect of air velocity, water droplet diameter and inlet water temperature change according to the temperature of the water coming out of the 2m wide, 2m long and 3m high cooling tower was investigated. For the cooling tower, data values suitable for design are selected. The study used air velocities of 2 m/s, 4 m/s, 6 m/s, and 8 m/s, water droplet diameters of 0.01, 0.008, 0.005, and 0.001 m, and inlet water temperatures of 306.15, 309.15, 311.15, and 313.15 K). In addition, the relationship between cooling range and air velocity for mass flow values of different process waters was also investigated. As a result of the study, it was observed that the process leaving water temperatures decreased with the increase of air velocities, but the cooling range increased. A similar situation was observed with the reduction of water droplet diameters. However, it has been observed that when the inlet water temperatures are increased, the outlet process water temperatures and the cooling interval also increase.