International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 55 (2012) 78037811

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

Thermal performance analysis of closed wet cooling towers under both

unsaturated and supersaturated conditions
Wei-Ye Zheng, Dong-Sheng Zhu , Guo-Yan Zhou , Jia-Fei Wu, Yun-Yi Shi
Key Laboratory of Pressure System and Safety (MOE), School of Mechanical and Power Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237,
Peoples Republic of China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A closed wet cooling tower (CWCT) can be regarded as a cooling tower with the packing replaced by a
Received 12 April 2012 bank of tubes. The heat and mass transfer in CWCT has been little investigated under supersaturated con-
Received in revised form 3 August 2012 dition. The governing equations for heat and mass transfer in CWCT under both unsaturated and super-
Accepted 3 August 2012
saturated conditions were derived based on Poppe method. Based on a sectional method, two analytical
Available online 4 September 2012
models were proposed and a program was coded to investigate the thermal performance by automati-
cally selecting the corresponding governing equations whether the air was supersaturated or not. The
Keywords:
results show that the air temperature, humidity ratio and enthalpy distributions under both unsaturated
Poppe method
Closed wet cooling tower
and supersaturated conditions could be accurately predicted with the analytical models. Then the effect
Heat and mass transfer of degree of saturation of inlet air on the heat transfer rate and process-water outlet temperature was
Thermal performance presented, and little difference was found between the unsaturated and supersaturated conditions if
the outlet air was supersaturated.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Closed wet cooling towers (CWCTs) in conventional form can be
regarded as a cooling tower in which the packing is replaced by a
bank of tubes carrying the process uid. CWCTs are increasingly
used to reject heat from industrial processes and buildings as they
have advantages over traditional cooling towers in terms of better
thermal performance and lower energy consumption. There have
been substantial research interests in modeling CWCTs. Numerous
researchers have developed different analytical models to investi-
gate the thermal performance of CWCTs. Zalewski and
Gryglaszewski [1] presented a mathematical model of heat and
mass transfer correlations in the evaporative uid coolers. The
agreement between the calculated and experimental values was
improved when the correlation function of mass transfer coef-
cient was introduced. Correlation based models were adopted by
Faco and Oliveira [2] to predict the thermal performance, the re-
sults showed that the simpler models, with a global approach,
could give as good, or even better, results as models based on nite
difference techniques for the small CWCT. Hasan and Sirn [3]
developed a computational model to optimize ow rates and num-
ber of tubes and rows for the required cooling load and to achieve a
high coefcient of performance. The ratio of computed to the
Corresponding authors. Tel./fax: +86 021 64253708.
E-mail addresses: cedshzhu@ecust.edu.cn (D.-S. Zhu), zhougy@ecust.edu.cn
(G.-Y. Zhou).
experimental rejected heat was between 92 and 115%. Stabat and
Marchio [4] presented a simplied model for the behavior of a
CWCT. The model was based on effectiveness models by simplica-
tion of heat and mass balance and transfer equations. The error in
heat transfer rate was less than 10% compared with manufacturers
catalog data. Qureshi and Zubair [5] described a risk based ap-
proach with the fouling model to study the effect of fouling on
the thermal performance parameters such as effectiveness when
operating under similar operating conditions. Xia et al. [6] adopted
a transient one dimensional distributed-parameter model to eval-
uate the CWCT performance under different operating conditions.
Determination of heat and mass transfer coefcients, as well as
the inuence of Lewis number on the thermal performance was
presented. The above analytical models have been derived with
the assumption that the air is unsaturated along the CWCT. Klop-
pers and Krger [7] investigated into the heat and mass transfer
analysis taking into account the supersaturation for the counter-
ow wet cooling towers and concluded that the Poppe method
was especially suited to be employed in the analysis of hybrid cool-
ing towers as the state of the outlet air was accurately determined.
While the air may be supersaturated along the CWCT has not been
taken into consideration. Therefore, errors can be resulted in when
evaluating the heat and mass transfer of a CWCT under supersatu-
rated conditions. Under the supersaturated condition, the air may
become saturated before it leaves the CWCT. Because the gradient
for temperature and vapor concentration still exists at the
airwater interface, the air becomes supersaturated and the excess

0017-9310/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2012.08.006
7804 W.-Y. Zheng et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 55 (2012) 78037811

Nomenclature

A area, m2 T temperature, K
cp specic heat constant pressure, J/kg K Ta air dry-bulb temperature, K
d diameter, m Va air volumetric ow rate, m3/s
G mass velocity, kg/s m2 w humidity ratio, kg water vapor/kg dry air
h heat transfer coefcient, W/m2 K k thermal conductivity of water, W/m K
hd mass transfer coefcient, kg/m2 s
hw convection heat transfer coefcient of deluge water, Subscripts
W/m2 K a air, or based on air-side area
i enthalpy, J/kg c convection
ima enthalpy of the air-vapor mixture per unit mass of dry d deluge water
air, J/kg i inlet, or inside
k thermal conductivity, W/m K m mass transfer, mean
K overall heat transfer coefcient, W/m2 K o outlet, or outside
Lef Lewis number s supersaturated
m mass ow rate, kg/s p constant pressure or process water
Pr Prandtl number sw Saturated
Q heat transfer rate, W v Vapor
Re Reynolds number w deluge water or wall
RH air relative humidity, % wb wet bulb

water vapor will condense as a mist. In this paper, the thermal per-
formance of CWCT is predicted by implementing analytical models
under both unsaturated and supersaturated conditions based on
Poppe method. Comparison is taken to identify the difference in
the thermal performance.

2. Analytical heat and mass transfer

Fig. 1 represents a schematic layout of a countercurrent CWCT.

The process water, to be cooled, ows inside the tubes. Air is drawn
up through the bank of tubes while deluge water is sprayed down-
ward over the tubes. Some of the deluge water is evaporated into
the air while the remainder falls back into the water sump and is
recirculated. Energy is transferred from the process water through
the tube wall and into the deluge water. From here, the energy is
transferred into the air due to convection and evaporation.

2.1. Poppe analysis

By employing these assumptions and following an approach

Fig. 1. Schematic layout of a CWCT.
similar to Poppe and Rgener [8] and Dreyer [9], an analytical
model of the CWCTs can be derived from basic principles. An
elementary control volume is shown in Fig. 2.
The assumptions are as follows:

(1) The heat and mass transfer are performed in a steady state.
(2) The radiation between the CWCT and the surroundings is
neglected.
(3) The tube surfaces are uniformly wetted, and the air ow and
deluge water are uniformly distributed throughout the
CWCT.
(4) The airwater interface offers a negligible resistance to heat
transfer [10], hence the airwater interface air can be con-
sidered as saturated air at the deluge-water temperature.

2.1.1. Governing equations for heat and mass transfer for unsaturated
Fig. 2. Control volume.
air
The mass balance applicable to the control volume is
dmw ma dw 2
mp ma 1 w mw mp ma 1 w dw mw dmw 1
where ma is the mass ow rate of the dry air, w is the humidity
or ratio.
 W.-Y. Zheng et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 55 (2012) 78037811 7805

The energy balance over the control volume gives The convective heat transfer of sensible heat at the interface of
airwater is given by
mp cpp T p ma ima mw cpw T w mp cpp T p dT p ma ima dima
mw dmw cpw T w dT w 3 dQ c hT w  T a dA 15

where the process-water temperature Tp, and the deluge-water lm The corresponding enthalpy transfer at the airwater interface
temperature Tw is in C. due to the difference in the vapor concentration is then
Neglecting the second order terms and simplify Eq. (3) to dQ m iv dma iv hd wsw  wdA 16
1 The enthalpy of the water vapor, iv, calculated at the bulk
dT w mp cpp dT p  ma dima  cpw T w dmw 4
mw cpw deluge-water lm temperature, is given by
where ima is the enthalpy of the air-vapor mixture per unit mass of iv ifgwo cpv T w 17
dry air, which can be expressed as
Substituting Eqs. (15) and (16) into Eq. (14), nd the total heat
ima cpa T a wifgwo cpv T a 5 transfer at the airwater interface
The latent heat ifgwo is evaluated at 0 C and the specic heats, cpa dQ a hT w  T a dA iv hd wsw  wdA 18
and cpv at Ta/2 C.
Substituting Eq. (7) into Eq. (18) and nd
The enthalpy of the saturated air at the airwater interface
evaluated at the bulk deluge-water lm temperature is dQ a hd Lef imasw  ima 1  Lef wsw  wiv dA 19
imasw cpa T w wsw ifgwo cpv T w cpa T w wiv wsw  wiv where Lef = h/hdcpma is the Lewis factor and is an indication of the
6 relative rates of heat and mass transfer. Bosnjakovic [11] developed
an empirical relation for the Lewis factor Lef for airwater vapor
Subtracting Eq. (5) from Eq. (6) and ignoring the small difference systems. The Lewis factor for unsaturated air is given by
in the specic heats, which are evaluated at difference temperatures.    
The equation can be simplied as follows: wsw 0:622 wsw 0:622
Lef 0:8650:667 1 ln 20
w 0:622 w 0:622
imasw  ima  wsw  wiv
Tw  Ta 7 The enthalpy transfer to the air vapor from Eq. (14) is
cpma
where cpma = cpa + wcpv. hd Lef imasw  ima 1  Lef wsw  wiv dA
dima dQ a =ma
The heat transfer of process water can be written as ma
21
dQ p mp cpp dT p 8
If the outlet air is not saturated, the temperature and enthalpy
The heat transfer from the process water to the deluge water is
distribution can be calculated from Eqs. (2), (4), (10), (13), (20)
given by
and (21), .
dQ p KT p  T w dA 9
2.1.2. Governing equations for heat and mass transfer for
Substituting Eq. (8) into Eq. (9) yields
supersaturated air
KT p  T w dA If the air is supersaturated, the excess water vapor will con-
dT p  10
mp cpp dense as a water mist. The control volume in Fig. 2 is also applica-
ble if the air is supersaturated. The enthalpy of supersaturated air
where K is the overall heat transfer coefcient between the process can be expressed as
water inside the tubes and the deluge water on the outside tubes
based on the outer area of the tube, A is the outer area of the tubes. imas cpa T a wsa ifgwo cpv T a w  wsa cpw T a
It can be written as cpa T a wsa iv cpv T a  T w  w  wsa cpw T a 22
 
1 1 do do do 1 where wsa is the humidity ratio of saturated air at temperature Ta.
ln 11
K hi di 2kw di hw Subtracting Eq. (22) from Eq. (6), by introducing
where di and do are the inside and outside tube diameters, kw the (w-wsa)cpwTw-(w-wsa)cpwTw, which adds up to zero, the tempera-
tube wall conductivity. ture driving potential can be obtained
The mass ow rate evaporating from the deluge water into the imasw  imas  wsw  wsa iv w  wsa cpw T w
air vapor is expressed as Tw  Ta 23
cpmas
dmw hd wsw  wdA 12
where cpmas is the specic heat of supersaturated air per unit mass
where wsw is the saturated humidity ratio of the air evaluated at the of dry air and dene as
bulk deluge-water lm temperature. cpmas cpa wsa cpv w  wsa cpw 24
From Eqs. (2) and (12) and nd
Bourillot [12], Poppe and Rgener[8] and Kloppers and Krger [7]
hd wsw  wdA
dw 13 proposed that the heat and mass transfer coefcients for supersat-
ma urated and unsaturated air were the same. The mass ow rate
If the moist air is unsaturated, the total energy balance at the evaporating from the deluge water into the supersaturated air is
airwater interface consists of an enthalpy transfer due to the dif- expressed as
ference in temperature and the difference in vapor concentration
dmw hd wsw  wsa dA 25
dQ a dQ c dQ m ma dima 14
where the subscripts c and m refer to the enthalpy associated with By applying the same analysis as in the case of unsaturated air,
the convective heat transfer and the mass transfer. the governing equations can be obtained
7806 W.-Y. Zheng et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 55 (2012) 78037811

Table 1
Comparison between predicted and experimental outlet process-water and air temperature.

Case Process water Deluge water Air inlet Tpo (C) Tao (C)
3 3 3
Vp (m /h) Tpi (C) Vd (m /h) Va (m /s) Tai (C) Twbi (C) By Exp. By Poppe Err (%) By Exp. By Poppe Err (%)
1 28.47 22.91 15.07 4.00 9.9 4.1 20.03 19.94 0.25 13.78 14.37 4.28
2 28.47 22.54 15.32 3.87 14.6 7.1 20.13 20.07 0.25 16.38 16.51 0.79
3 27.24 39.22 15.25 3.79 15.0 7.6 33.27 33.15 0.48 23.58 23.32 1.10
4 28.28 22.93 15.09 3.17 10.1 4.0 20.43 20.40 0.29 14.5 14.86 2.48
5 28.31 22.56 15.24 3.05 14.7 7.1 20.51 20.46 0.15 16.82 16.91 0.54
6 26.91 39.27 15.19 2.97 14.9 7.6 34.02 33.99 0.32 24.23 23.96 1.11
7 28.11 22.99 15.08 2.35 9.8 3.9 20.91 20.95 0.34 15.14 15.29 0.99
8 28.22 22.61 15.22 2.22 14.7 7.1 20.91 20.94 0.24 17.26 17.36 0.58

215 190

210 180

205
170

Q , kW
Q , kW

200
160
Tpi=310K, Tai=280K Tpi=310K, Tai=290K
195
Unsaturated 150 Unsaturated
Supersaturated Supersaturated
190
140
185
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100
RH, % RH, %
(a) Tpi=310K, Tai=280K (b) Tpi=310K, Tai=290K

180 160

160
120
140
Q , kW
Q , kW

80
120

Tpi=310K, Tai=300K Tpi=310K, Tai=310K

100 Unsaturated 40 Unsaturated
Supersaturated Supersaturated
80
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100
RH, % RH, %
(c) Tpi=310K, Tai=300K (d) Tpi=310K, Tai=310K
Fig. 3. Comparison between the total heat transfer rate under unsaturated and supersaturated conditions.

dmw ma dw 26 If the outlet air is supersaturated, the temperature and enthalpy
distribution can be calculated from Eqs. (26)(31).
1
dT w mp cpp dT p  ma dima  cpw T w dmw 27
mw cpw 2.1.3. Deluge-water temperature distribution
Heyns [13] showed an example of the change in the deluge-
KT p  T w dA water temperature through the tube bundle. Since the deluge
dT p  28
mp cpp water is recirculated (Fig. 1), temperature rising due to pump work
is small and can be neglected, the temperature of the deluge water
hd wsw  wsa dA at the inlet and outlet of the tube bundle is the same [3,13,14].
dw 29
ma
T wi T wo 32
   
wsw 0:622 wsw 0:622
Lef 0:8650:667 1 ln 30
wsa 0:622 wsa 0:622
2.2. Solving the governing equations
dima dQ a =ma
The governing equations for the thermal performance of the
hd Lef imasw  imas w  wsa cpw T w 1  Lef wsw  wsa iv dA
CWCT can be evaluated iteratively by the nite difference method.
ma
The air conditions in terms of temperature, humidity ratio and
31
enthalpy for unsaturated and supersaturated air must be solved
 W.-Y. Zheng et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 55 (2012) 78037811 7807

40 40

35 35

Tpo ,C
Tpo , C
30 30

Tpi=310K, Tai=280K Tpi=310K, Tai=290K

25 Unsaturated 25 Unsaturated
Supersaturated Supersaturated

20 20
0 20 40 60 80 10 0 0 20 40 60 80 100
RH, % RH, %
(a) Tpi=310K, Tai=280K (b) Tpi=310K, Tai=290K

40 40

35 35

Tpo , C
Tpo , C

30 30

Tpi=310K, Tai=300K Tpi=310K, Tai=310K

25 Unsaturated 25 Unsaturated
Supersaturated Supersaturated

20 20
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100
RH, % RH, %
(c) Tpi=310K, Tai=300K (d) Tpi=310K, Tai=310K
Fig. 4. Comparison between the process-water outlet temperatures under unsaturated and supersaturated conditions.

21.5
0.017
Tpi=310K, Tai=280K 21.0 Tpi=310K, Tai=280K
Unsaturated Unsaturated
0.016 Supersaturated 20.5
Supersaturated
wo , kg/kg

20.0
Tao ,C

0.015 19.5

19.0
0.014
18.5

18.0
0.013
0.000 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005 0.006 17.5
wi , kg/kg 0.000 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005 0.006
wi , kg/kg
Fig. 5. Comparison between the outlet humidity ratio of air under unsaturated and
supersaturated conditions. Fig. 6. Comparison between the outlet air temperature under unsaturated and
supersaturated conditions.

by an iterative procedure. Successive iterations are needed for the

values of the outlet air enthalpy imao, outlet humidity ratio wo and
the inlet deluge-water temperature Tw to nd the values for all the
control volumes. The solution procedure is presented in Appendix
A. For the unsaturated condition, governing equations for unsatu-
rated air are solved to predict the thermal performance of the
CWCT. For the supersaturated condition, a test is implemented to
determine whether the air is unsaturated or supersaturated in each
control volume, then the program automatically selects the corre-
sponding governing equations. The thermo-physical properties
(density, thermal conductivity, viscosity and heat capacity) of
process water and saturated air at air-deluge water interface can
be calculated by some empirical equations, which are summarized
by Krger [14].
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Experimental validation for unsaturated air
A prototype tower [15] consists of eight rows of externally gal-
vanized steel oval tubes. The major axis of the tube is 31.8 mm, and
minor axis 21.6 mm with tube wall thickness 1.5 mm. The oval
7808 W.-Y. Zheng et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 55 (2012) 78037811

Fig. 7. Path of air temperature and humidity indicated on a supersaturated psychrometric chart.

0.018
22
0.016 Tpi=310K, Tai=280K,
wi=0.004kg/kg 20
0.014 wunsaturated
wsupersaturated 18
w , kg/kg

0.012
wsaturated
0.010 16
Ta ,C

0.008 14 Tpi=310K, Tai=280K,

wi=0.004kg/kg
0.006 12
Ta , unsaturated
0.004 10 Ta , supersaturated
0 1 2 3 45 6 7 8
8
Tube row 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tube row
Fig. 8. Distribution of humidity ratio of air under unsaturated and supersaturated
conditions along the CWCT. Fig. 9. Distribution of air temperature under unsaturated and supersaturated
conditions along the CWCT.

tubes are 1.25 m long and arranged in a stagger pattern at a trans-

versal pitch of 53.4 mm. There are 37 oval tubes per tube row. outlet air temperature also shows a good agreement with experi-
The correlations for deluge-water lm heat transfer coefcient mental data. The acceptable agreement between the theoretical
(hw) and mass transfer coefcient (hd) [15] were expressed as and experimental results for unsaturated conditions enhances our
condence on the reliability of the numerical investigation of the
hw 350:31 0:0169tw G0:59
a
1=3
Gw 33 thermal performance for the supersaturated conditions.

hd 0:034G0:977
a 34
for 2.57 < Ga < 4.94 kg/m2 s, 1.2 < Gw = U/d < 3.176 kg/m2 s, 11 < Tw <
28C.
The tube-side heat transfer coefcient hi in a turbulent ow was
calculated as follows
k 0:8 0:3
hi 0:023 Re Pr
di
Establishing the CWCT heat and mass transfer coefcients and
using the presented analytical models, it is possible to predict
the thermal performance characteristics with variable outdoor air
conditions and ow rates.
A comparison between the predicted and experimental results
for outlet process water temperature is given in Table 1. As it can
be observed, the predicted results are in good agreement with the
corresponding experimental data. This can verify the reliability of
the prediction by Poppe analysis for unsaturated air. The predicted
3.2. Comparison and discussion
Since the experimental data for the distributions of process-
water temperature, dry-bulb temperature and humidity ratio of
air along the CWCT are unavailable, the comparison is limited to
the prediction by Poppe method under both unsaturated and
35 supersaturated conditions.
The differences between the predicted results are investigated
under different operating conditions. Inlet air temperatures of
280, 290, 300 and 310 K are considered. The relative humidity of
air is varied from 8 to 97%.
Fig. 3 shows the comparison between the total heat transfer
rate Q under unsaturated and supersaturated conditions. The pre-
dicted total heat transfer rate is the same if the air is unsaturated. It
is found that the outlet air conditions are all unsaturated at inlet air
temperature of 290, 300 and 310 K of RH varying from 8 to 97%.
Whereas at an inlet air temperature of 280 K, the predicted results
 W.-Y. Zheng et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 55 (2012) 78037811
show that the outlet air conditions are all supersaturated. The
higher the inlet air temperature, the higher the satura-
tion point and hence the more water vapor can be absorbed when
the air gets saturated. Little difference in the total heat transfer rate
is found between the unsaturated and supersaturated conditions.
The difference is approximately zero.
The process-water outlet temperatures under unsaturated and
supersaturated conditions are shown in Fig. 4. Because the differ-
ence in the heat transfer rate is approximately zero, the correspond-
ing process-water outlet temperatures show no difference between
the results at different air conditions. The degree of saturation of the
air does not have a great impact on the heat transfer rate and pro-
cess-water outlet temperature between the two conditions pre-
dicted by Poppe method. Kloppers and Krger [7] pointed out that
the lines of constant air enthalpy in the supersaturated region were
very close to vertical. Therefore, for a specic air enthalpy, it does
not matter how much water vapor and water mist are present in
the supersaturated air. Thus, the assumption that the air is unsatu-
rated is also a very useful assumption to predict the total heat trans-
fer rate of the CWCTs if the actual air is supersaturated.
The following results are obtained for inlet air temperature of
280 K.
As can be seen in Fig. 5, the difference in humidity ratio of outlet
air is increasing with the increasing humidity ratio of inlet air. At
0.006 kg/kg dry air (RH = 97.7%) in a very humid condition, the dif-
ference is almost 4.53%. According to Fig. 6, the predicted outlet air
temperatures are not very close to each other under unsaturated
and supersaturated conditions. The maximum difference is 9.3% at
humidity ratio of 0.006 kg/kg dry air (RH = 97.7%). As shown in
Fig. 7, in the supersaturated region on a psychrometric chart, lines
of constant air enthalpy are close to vertical, while in the unsatu-
rated region, the lines of constant air enthalpy are far from vertical
which will cause discrepancy in outlet air temperature prediction.
For example, the supersaturated condition point B whose enthalpy
is 60 kJ/kg dry air and humidity ratio is 0.020 kg/kg dry air, then air
temperature is determined to be 18.61C.Assuming the supersatu-
rated point B is in the unsaturated region, if the humidity ratio
and enthalpy are the same with point B, the predicted point will
be A with the corresponding air temperature 11.33C which is much
lower than the actual air temperature, if the air temperature and en-
thalpy are the same with point B, the predicted humidity ratio is
0.0165 kg/kg dry air. Thus, the predicted air temperature will be be-
tween 11.33 and 18.61C and the humidity ratio will be in the range
of 0.0165 to 0.020 kg/kg dry air which are lower than the values of
the actual supersaturated condition. Thus, the assumption that
the air is unsaturated is unable to predict accurate air temperature
and humidity ratio if the actual air is supersaturated.
Due to the rigorous Poppe method derivation, the analytical
model with Poppe method can be able to give the distributions
of enthalpy, air temperature and humidity ratio along the CWCT.
The air condition of temperature of 280 K and humidity ratio of
0.004 kg/kg dry air which the corresponding relative humidity is
approximately 65.3% is considered. The distributions are showed
as follows (i = 1 for the bottom row; i = 8 for the top row).
Since the inlet air is relatively low temperature and high humid,
the air immediately becomes supersaturated as it passes several
tube rows, as shown in Fig. 8. The transition from unsaturation
to supersaturation is decided by the humidity ratio whether is low-
er or higher than the saturated humidity ratio. For the unsaturated
condition, the predicted humidity ratio is lower than the saturated
humidity ratio, while the predicted humidity ratio is higher than
the saturated humidity ratio for the supersaturated condition. As
the temperature and humidity gradient still exist between the
air-deluge water interface and air, it can be seen in Figs. 8 and 9,
the air temperature together with the saturated humidity ratio in-
crease. The predicted humidity ratio under unsaturated condition
7809
80
60
i , kJ/kg
Tpi=310K, Tai=280K
40
wi=0.004kg/kg
ima, unsaturated
20 ima, supersaturated
imasw, unsaturated
imasw, supersaturated
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tube row
Fig. 10. Distribution of enthalpy under unsaturated and supersaturated conditions
along the CWCT.
lie between the saturated and supersaturated humidity ratio pre-
dicted under supersaturated condition.
Fig. 10 shows the distribution of enthalpy under unsaturated
and supersaturated conditions along the CWCT. No signicant dif-
ference is found between the two conditions. That the enthalpy of
water mist in the air is small compared to the total air enthalpy
may be an explanation for it.
4. Conclusion
The governing equations based on Poppe method are derived to
investigate the thermal performance of CWCT under both unsatu-
rated and supersaturated conditions. A detailed program with -
nite difference method is presented to solve the governing
equations. Little difference in heat transfer rate and process-water
temperature is found between the prediction under the unsatu-
rated and supersaturated conditions. The results show that it is
very useful to predict the total heat transfer rate and outlet pro-
cess-water temperature of the CWCTs that the air is assumed to
be unsaturated if the actual air is supersaturated. It indicates that
supersaturation is likely to occur at low inlet air temperature. It
is clear from the discussion, the predicted air temperatures and
humidity ratio are not very close to the two conditions if the outlet
air is supersaturated. The distribution of air temperature, enthalpy
and humidity ratio along the CWCT would provide a better under-
standing of the heat and mass transfer of CWCT. The present meth-
od can be employed to predict the air condition in the
supersaturated state along the CWCT.
Acknowledgements
The work was nancially supported by Cultivation Fund for
Interdisciplinary and Major Project (MOE) (2010JB0621) and Natu-
ral Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 50905060.
Appendix A. Solving procedure
The nite difference method is employed to solve the governing
equations for unsaturated and supersaturated conditions based on
Poppe method. Eqs. (2), (4), (10), (13), (20), and (21) represent the
governing equations for unsaturated air and Eqs. (26)(31) for
supersaturated air.
The CWCT is divided into a number of control volumes, as
shown in Fig. A.1. The governing equations for heat and mass trans-
fer are calculated for each control volume. The solution starts
by taking the process-water inlet control volume and proceeds
in the direction of process water ow. The thermo-physical
7810 W.-Y. Zheng et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 55 (2012) 78037811

Deluge water

(1,1) (1,2) (1,n-1) (1,n)

Process water

(2i-1,1) (2i-1,2) (2i-1,n-1) (2i-1,n)

dL
(2i,1) (2i,2) (2i,n-1) (2i,n)

(N,1) (N,2) (N,n-1) (N,n)

Air

(a) tube coil with N tube rows and n control volumes per (b) control volume
tube row
Fig. A.1. Flowchart of the calculating process.

Fig. A.2. Flowchart diagram for Poppe-type method.

 W.-Y. Zheng et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 55 (2012) 78037811
properties (density, thermal conductivity, viscosity and heat capac-
ity) of process water and saturated air at the air-deluge water
interface in current control volume are dened based on the outlet
temperature of the preceding control volume. The equations must
be solved by an iterative procedure. Successive iterations are
needed for the values of the outlet air enthalpy imao, outlet humid-
ity ratio wo and the inlet deluge-water temperature Twi to nd the
values for all the control volumes.
The owchart diagrams for the thermal performance prediction
under both unsaturated and supersaturated conditions by Poppe
method are showed in Fig. A.2. First, iterations are carried out to
check the average of computed inlet air enthalpy with the inlet air
state imai. Second, iterations are executed to compare the average
computed inlet air humidity ratio with the inlet air state wi. Finally,
iterations are implemented to approach equality of Twi and Two.
Under the supersaturated condition, test is implemented to
determine whether the air is unsaturated or supersaturated in each
control volume. For the control volume (2i-1,j), the air is assumed to
be unsaturated, the air temperature Ta(2i-1,j) is determined from Eq.
(5) by iterative with w(2i-1,j) and ima(2i-1,j) known. Then assume
the air is saturated and determine the wetbulb temperature
Twb(2i-1,j) from the following Eq. (A.1). If Ta(2i-1,j) < Twb(2i-1,j),
which is impossible, the air is supersaturated, otherwise the air is
unsaturated and Ta(2i-1,j) is the dry-bulb temperature of the air.
The dry-bulb temperature of supersaturated air Ta(2i-1,j) is deter-
mined from Eq. (22) by iterative with w(2i-1,j) and ima(2i-1,j) known.
 
2501:6  2:3263T wb  273:15 0:62509pv wb
w [15] W.-Y. Zheng, D.-S. Zhu, J. Song, L.-D. Zeng, H.-j. Zhou, Experimental and
2501:6 1:8577T  273:15  4:184T wb  273:15 P a  1:005pv wb
 
1:00416T  T wb

2501:6 1:8577T  273:15  4:184T wb  273:15
A:1
7811
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