A simulation to predict the behavior of wet cooling tower in a steam power plant

The cooling tower has always been an essential part of power plants or any other industry where there is heat removal needed. In a cooling tower, the maximum amount of heat transfer takes place in the packing zone. Therefore, it becomes necessary to predict the change in temperature, the mass flow r...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Naik, Babaso N., Pawar, Nilesh D., Dadge, Mayank S., Shaha, Sarthak V., Zope, Yugal S., Kendale, Sakshi S., Virkar, Shweta S.
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Subjects:
Air quality
Cooling
Cooling towers
Differential equations
Mass flow rate
Mass transfer
Mathematical analysis
Mathematical models
Matlab
Measuring instruments
Ordinary differential equations
Power plants
Runge-Kutta method
Steam electric power generation
Thermocouples
Water temperature
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Summary:The cooling tower has always been an essential part of power plants or any other industry where there is heat removal needed. In a cooling tower, the maximum amount of heat transfer takes place in the packing zone. Therefore, it becomes necessary to predict the change in temperature, the mass flow rate of water, and characteristics of air like the specific humidity, dry bulb temperature, the mass flow rate of air along the packing height. There has been a lot of literature to analyze the behavior of wet cooling tower, however simple methodology without any notational ambiguity is not available. This paper uses the Continuous Differential Air-Water Contactor (CDAWC) model to predict water temperature along the packing bed. The mathematical model has system of ordinary differential equations having four equations and a MATLAB script is written to solve these differential equations using fourth order Runge-Kutta method. Furthermore, a regression equation is developed in order to predict the mass transfer coefficient and its dependence on various factors is discussed. An induced draft wet cooling tower is used to generate experimental data. The total height of the tower was 2.65m and the cross-sectional area was 2.4964 square meters. The temperature variation along the packing was measured with the help of K-type thermocouples to monitor the quality of air that was passing through the wet cooling tower. This model can also be further extended to check the air quality leaving the tower for changes in condenser load. The results drawn from the MATLAB code are in good accordance with the experimental data collected from the wet cooling tower in laboratory.
ISSN:0094-243X
1551-7616
DOI:10.1063/5.0155376