Project Report

2008 MVK160 Heat and Mass Transport

May 08, 2008, Lund, Sweden

Heat ad mass transfer in a cooling tower with special attention to

the tower characteristic ratio
Michael Blocher
Dept. of Energy Sciences, Faculty of Engineering
Lund University, Box 118, 22100 Lund, Sweden

ABSTRACT
Explanation and calculation of the
tower characteristic ratio for a cooling tower
following a procedure from a paper.
NOMENCLATURE
T
t
a

temperature [K]
temperature [C]
surface area of water droplets per unit
volume of tower (m2 m-3)
K
mass transfer coefficient (kg h-1 m-2
(kgw/kgda)-1)
L
water loading (kg h-l m-2)
V
active tower volume per unit plan area
(m3 m-2)
c
specific heat (kJ kg-1 K-l)
cda
specific heat of dry air (kJ kg-1 K-l)
i
enthalpy (kJ kg-1)
is
specific enthalpy of saturated moist air
at the water temperature tw (kJ kg-1)
NDCT natural draught cooling tower
MDCT mechanical draught cooling tower
Subscripts
da
a
w
wi
wo
1
2
s

dry air
moist air
water
inlet water
outlet water
air inlet condition
air outlet condition
saturated

INTRODUCTION
Every power plant or larger industrial facility
produces excessive heat that cannot be used
further (due to the entropy rise). This heat
has to be transferred to the environment if a

breakdown of the process in the facility is not

acceptable (which it normally isnt).
If there are water reservoirs (sea, lakes
or rivers) nearby in which the heat can be
transferred without environmental concerns,
this is the cheapest and easiest way. But
unfortunately, this is not often the case and so
alternative cooling methods need to be invented
and used. One especially well known is the
cooling tower, because it is a land mark and is
often mistaken for a chimney.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
The general construction of a cooling tower is
governed by different decisions. It is important
to construct the tower in a way that it lives up to
all the demands the different parties have
towards it. I.e. environmental, design, function
and price.
Cooling towers are not only used in
nuclear power plants but also in many other
conventional (combustion) power plants to
remove excess process heat. Cooling towers can
generally be divided into two different kinds:
Natural Draught Cooling Towers (NDCT) and
Mechanical Draught Cooling Towers (MDCT).
Mechanical Draught just indicates that the
convection in the tower is not natural but
induced by a fan. The relative movement of air
and water is the reason for another
classification which divides them into cross
flow and counter flow towers. And if one
considers the mechanism of the cooling in the
tower they can be divided into wet, wet-dry and
dry cooling towers.
Dry cooling towers are basically a
radiator like every car or truck uses one. The
hot water (that has usually been used to
condense the excess steam after a steam
turbine) is being pumped through an array of
pipes with attached metal plates which then
radiate the heat to the air that flows (or is being

blown) through the cooling tower. This type has

a very big advantage. The water in the cooling
circuit is not being evaporated and therefore
problems with mineral deposits can be avoided.
The big disadvantage is that its cooling capacity
is far below that of the other two designs.
A Wet cooling tower uses parts of the
hot water that needs to be cooled to evaporate
and to support the cooling effect of the air by
adding extra evaporation cooling to the process
(the rest of the water is cooled down more
effectively because heat is actively drawn from
it when parts of it evaporate). The big
advantage of the wet cooling tower is its
simplicity and therefore comparatively low
cost, but a big disadvantage is just that what
makes it so effective. The water that evaporates
has to be refilled, and since evaporating water
doesnt take its dissolved minerals with it, the
water deposits its minerals in the pipes and the
tower if the mineral level is not controlled.
Wet-dry cooling towers combine the
disadvantages of both other designs. They use
part of the water to evaporate and cool the
water itself plus water that is being pumped
through pipes in the so called filling of the
cooling tower. This generates on the one hand
less steam and therefore lost water, on the other
hand is the mineral deposit problem still
present, it is more expensive to build and the
cooling effectiveness is not as good as that of a
purely wet cooling tower.
There exist many different options for
NDCT, MDCT, cross flow and counter flow
designs, but the most common are explained
here shortly: Most MDCT designs are cross
flowing. That means that the cooling air is
ventilated mechanically horizontally through
the falling water. This could look like this:

(basically something with a desirably large

surface which doesnt block the air flow too
much and lets the water run more slowly to the
collection basin). A very popular design is a
hyperbolic structure because of air flow (like a
nozzle) and structural reasons. These buildings
are maybe the most filigree concrete structures
that are being built with wall thicknesses of
sometimes just 18 cm.

For my project calculation Id like to calculate a

wet counter flow natural draught cooling tower.
LITERATURE SURVEY
After having searched ELIN for relevant
research material about cooling towers a paper
called Knowledge base for the systematic
design of wet cooling towers, 1996, A. K. M.
Mohiuddin and K. Kant could be found. It is
basically a textbook for the calculation of a
cooling tower.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The generally accepted concept of cooling
tower performance is in terms of the tower
characteristic ratio (KaV/L), which is basically
a measure of the effectiveness of a cooling
tower (cooling capacity divided by the water
that runs through it).

Most NDCT designs are counter flowing and

have a so called fill or packaging to increase the
time the warm water stays in the cold air

To obtain the tower characteristic ratio, one

follows the simplifications presented in
reference [1] and gets the following equation:

t wi

K a V
dt
t t
cw ' w cw wi wo
L
i ia
4
t wo s

w x w*s
1

i
j 1

The basic simplification is that the enthalpy and

temperature profile in the tower is being
divided into different sections that are then
being assumed to have constant values.

where ws* is the specific humidity of saturated

air and x is the humidity in %.

ws* 0.62198

pws
pt pws

In this equation pt is the total pressure of the air

and pws is the partial vapour pressure at
saturation. For pws exists an empirical
formulation:

ln 105 pws C1T 1

C2 C3T C4T 2 C5T 3 C6 ln T
With the constants
C1 5800.2206
C2 1.3914993
This is a very good equation to solve, because
K, a, V and L are pure tower characteristics and
the right hand side are pure demand
characteristics with cw, twi, two given and ij
being relatively easily calculable.

i is' ia

C3 0.048640239
C4 0.41764768 104
C5 0.14452093 107
C6 6.5459673

ia is the enthalpy of the air flowing through the

tower. It can be calculated at the four
interesting points using the following formulas:

For the enthalpy i2 one assumes that the air is

saturated with water when it leaves the cooling
tower and uses therefore the equations for the
enthalpy of saturated water. For temperatures
between 10-35C:

iA i1 0.1 i2 i1

i2 C7t 1

iB i1 0.4 i2 i1

C8 C9t C10t 2 C11t 3 C12t 4

iC i1 0.6 i2 i1

With the constants

iD i1 0.9 i2 i1

C7 53.52515

Where i1 can be obtained via the formula for the

enthalpy of unsaturated air.

C8 3.517334

i1 cda t1 w 2501 1.805t1

C10 0.1669836 101

In this equation cda is the specific heat of dry

air, t1 is the temperature of the entering air and
w is the specific humidity of the air. w can be
calculated via:

C9 2.809715
C11 0.924304110 3
C12 0.9275973 105

For temperatures between 35-60C:

t A two 0.1 twi two 35.25C

i2 C13t 1

t B two 0.4 twi two 43.5C

C14 C15t C16t 2 C17 t 3 C18t 4

tC two 0.6 twi two 49C

t D t wo 0.9 twi two 57.25C

With the constants

C13 26325.88
C14 3174.125

Also, the inlet air enthalpy can be calculated.

For this one first needs the partial pressure of
the already solved water:

C15 151.3213
C16 3.762619
C17 0.04617667
C18 0.2495032 10 3
With these two equations, one can also
calculate is' for these four integration steps once
the water temperature for the different states
has been set according to:

t A two 0.1 t wi two

t B two 0.4 t wi two
tC two 0.6 t wi two
t D t wo 0.9 twi two
One can assume that the air flowing into a
cooling tower has about 20C (during the
summer it might be warmer, during the winter it
might be cooler, but its not really important
because this example is purely academic
anyway). The air moisture in per cent is
probably around 70 (also assumed), and the
temperature of the leaving air will not exceed
45C (also assumed). One can further calculate
the incoming water as having the temperature
of about 60C. The outgoing water has a
temperature of roughly in the middle between
the incoming and the outgoing air:

two 0.5 tai tao 32.5C

From there, one can calculate the different
water temperatures:

pws 47.329086 Pa 4.73 104 bar

With pt assumed to be 1.013 bar, ws* becomes:

ws* 0.62198

pws
2.907 104
pt pws

w x w*s 2.035 104

With cda = 1.004 kJ kg-1 K-1 the enthalpy for the
entering air becomes:

i1 cda t1 w 2501 1.805t1 20.582

kJ
kg

The enthalpy for the leaving air is:

i2 C13t 1
C14 C15t C16t 2 C17t 3 C18t 4
214.22

kJ
kg

Therefore, the enthalpy of the air at the

intermediate points can be calculated.
kJ
kg
kJ
iB i1 0.4 i2 i1 98.037
kg
kJ
iC i1 0.6 i2 i1 136.765
kg
kJ
iD i1 0.9 i2 i1 194.857
kg
iA i1 0.1 i2 i1 39.946

Also the enthalpy of the saturated air at the

intermediate water temperatures can be
calculated with the two enthalpy formulas:

CONCLUSIONS

kJ
'
iAs
61.702
kg
kJ
'
198.711
iBs
kg
kJ
'
261.864
iCs
kg
kJ
'
399.015
iDs
kg

A way to calculate the tower characteristic ratio

of a cooling tower has been found and used.
Additionally, a lot of tower concepts and other
information about cooling has been obtained,
but not been used during the writing of this
final text.
REFERENCES
[1] A. K. M. Mohiuddin and K. Kant,
1996, Knowledge base for the
systematic design of wet cooling
towers, Paper
[2] Si Y. Lee, James S. Bollinger, Alfred J.
Garrett and Larry D. Koffman, 2008,
CFD modeling analysis of mechanical
draft cooling tower, Proc. 2008 ASME
Summer Heat Transfer Conference,
WSRC-STI-2008-00123, Paper in
Conference Proceedings
[3] www.wikipedia.org

Now, ij can be calculated:

kJ
kg
kJ
'
iB iBs
iB 100.674
kg
kJ
'
iC iCs
iC 125.099
kg
kJ
'
iD iDs
iD 204.158
kg
'
iA iAs
iA 21.756

With this knowledge and cw = 4.184 kJ kg-1

K-1 one can now calculate the tower
characteristic ratio:
t t
K a V
cw wi wo
L
4

i
j 1

1.979
j

With this knowledge, one can now design the

cooling tower according to the different
parameters.
L = amount of cooling water per hour per
square meter
a = design of the nozzles to disperse the water
(finer spray, more surface)
K = mass transfer coefficient (amount of air
that comes into contact with water)
V = active tower volume per unit plan area
(how far down is the water falling?)
But all of this would exceed the amount
of time and space that has been set aside for this
project and therefore can be read in reference
[1].