Effect mechanism of ambient air parameters on the thermal performance for cooling towers

Abstract With the increasing volume of the cooling tower, the influence of environmental factors on the thermal performance of the cooling tower is not clear. Therefore, in order to more comprehensively study the influence mechanism of ambient air parameters on the thermal performance of the natural draft wet cooling tower, the key parameters such as gas-water ratio, circulating water temperature difference and heat transfer in each zone are calculated, and the temperature field and humidity field are also investigated. The results show that the circulating water temperature difference decreases most with the increase of ambient temperature, which is 7.63°C. However, atmospheric pressure makes the circulating water temperature difference decrease the least, which is 0.95°C, resulting in the decrease of heat transfer in the three zones by 14.9%, 10.6% and 26.0% respectively. The increase of relative humidity and atmospheric pressure leads to the increase of contact heat transfer and the decrease of evaporative mass transfer. The increase of ambient temperature makes the contact heat transfer and evaporative mass transfer decrease, and finally the heat and mass transfer capacity of the cooling tower decreases. This study establishes a theoretical basis for further optimization of the thermal performance and energy-saving design of cooling towers.