Original Article

Proc IMechE Part A:

J Power and Energy
Fog harvesting from cooling towers using 0(0) 1–21
! IMechE 2019

metal mesh: Effects of aerodynamic, Article reuse guidelines:

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deposition, and drainage efficiencies DOI: 10.1177/0957650919890711

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Ritwick Ghosh1,2 and Ranjan Ganguly2

Abstract
Fog harvesting is recognized as an important alternate source of fresh water. Industrial fog can supplement water for
industrial requirement. Collection of fog (drift droplets) from cooling tower plumes is a viable mode of industrial fog
harvesting. The present study delves deeper into the findings of our earlier pilot investigation, on cooling tower fog
harvesting and unravels how the collection efficiency depends on interaction of the mesh with the oncoming flow and the
deposited fog droplets. Herein, we quantify the fog collection and explain the rationale of the individual contributions of
aerodynamic, deposition, and drainage efficiencies on the overall collection efficiency. The effect of the mesh orientations
and the tangential velocity component of the cooling tower plume (arising out of the cooling tower-fan rotation) are
considered. Aerodynamic efficiency of the mesh and pressure drop across is estimated through computational fluid
dynamic analysis. Also, an analysis of the force interaction between the mesh wires, deposited droplet, and the fog
stream is carried out to identify the salient deterring factors like re-entrainment, clogging, and premature dripping of
collected water droplets, based on which the regime of collection is mapped. The best collection configuration is found
at an inclination of 15 with the vertical, with an overall collection efficiency of about 16%. The best configuration would
allow recovery of re-usable fresh water at a nominal energy penalty of 3.9 kWh/m3. Our results offer the design bases
for developing full-scale fog harvesting setups for industrial cooling towers.

Keywords
Fog harvesting, metal-mesh, aerodynamic efficiency, deposition efficiency, drainage efficiency, industrial fog

Date received: 2 July 2019; accepted: 4 November 2019

footprint.11,12 Wet type cooling towers (CT) in ther-

Introduction
In the era when fresh water has become scarcer glo-
bally,1 different countries and international bodies are
heavily promoting the practice of water conservation
as a part of lifestyle.2,3 Increasing contamination from
industrial wastes and landfills, along with inadequate
maintenance of the inland freshwater bodies have
led to the fast depletion of potable drinking water
sources. These have aggravated the risk of water-
borne diseases and poor public hygiene.4 Air-borne
fog has long been identified as a potential source of
fresh water by several NGOs.5,6 Although these pro-
jects have low to medium collections and are greatly
dependent on the number of fog days,7 these initia-
tives have helped to distribute low-cost potable drink-
ing water in remote, arid regions.6,8 Power plants are
one of the largest consumers of fresh water9,10 and
hence, are always in the focus of attention of environ-
mentalists and regulatory authorities for their water
mal power plants are known to spew large volumes of
industrial fog that have, besides the water vapor aris-
ing out of the evaporative cooling, a fraction that is
lost as un-evaporated fog droplets (commonly known
as the drift). The technology of power plant CTs is,
therefore, slowly gravitating toward dry cooling
mode, which shows promise of zero water foot-
print.13–17 Nevertheless, there are myriads of existing
installations worldwide that still use wet type CTs and
need adequate measures to minimize drift loss ema-
nating from the CT cells. Traditional drift eliminators
1
Operation & Maintenance Department, NTPC Limited, Farakka, India
2
Department of Power Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India
Corresponding author:
Ranjan Ganguly, Department of Power Engineering, Jadavpur University,
Kolkata 700106, India.
Email: ranjan.ganguly@jadavpuruniversity.in
2 Proc IMechE Part A: J Power and Energy 0(0)
that are currently deployed in the large CT installa-
tions cannot arrest droplets of size smaller than
40 mm.18,19 Drift loss alone accounts for almost
54 mL kW1h1of freshwater loss—for a 1000 MW
power station, this translates to a loss rate of 15 kg/s.20
Taking inspiration from the atmospheric fog harvest-
ing projects, we had carried out a pilot study to cap-
ture industrial fog arising out of CT of a 500 MWe
power plant—metal mesh was used to intercept the
rising fog plume from the CT cell, and drift (un-
evaporated water droplets) loss was arrested.21 The
study offered a significant potential for saving water.
Even with a meager 10% collection efficiency, the
amount of water collected and re-used is significantly
higher than any atmospheric fog harvesting projects
globally.21 Moreover, unlike the natural fog harvesters,
collections from CT fogs are not topography or
weather-dependent,19 making the requirement for trap-
ping this water to be more significant.
Despite these promises, research in the area of CT
fog harvesting is surprisingly low. To the best of the
authors’ knowledge, the maiden work on a pilot study
on CT fog harvesting was presented by this group.21
The study had confirmed that fog droplets could be
captured at CT outlet by mounting fog nets at speci-
fied tilt angles (with the vertical). The collection effi-
ciency was found to decrease sharply as the mesh tilt
angle was increased. Three major bottlenecks were
identified: (i) the collection efficiency was low
(albeit higher than that of natural fog harvesters),
(ii) collection varied largely on the relative positioning
of the fog net with respect to the fog plume flow dir-
ection, and (iii) mesh clogging and premature drip-
ping of collected droplets had detrimental effects.
The study21 explained the basis of overall collection
efficiency (coll ) as a product of aerodynamic efficiency
(a ), deposition efficiency (dp ) and drainage efficiency
(dr ). The aerodynamic efficiency, denoting the frac-
tion of fog streamlines traveling through the cross-
section of the mesh wire (the solid obstacles), was
evaluated following the model of Rivera.22,23
The collection efficiency for natural fog harvesters
too suffered due to poor drainage efficiency due
to clogging and premature dripping. Extensive studies
to enhance the drainage were recently reported by
many research groups. Shi et al.24 argued that
common fog harvester meshes suffer from two contra-
dicting features: mesh with large spacing cannot effi-
ciently capture microscopic fog droplets, whereas fine
meshes suffer from clogging issues. They proposed a
vertical array of ultrafine wire in a harp-like design.
While a few other studies have proposed bio-inspired
designs mimicking spider webs,25 conical spine,26
beetle-back27 or wettability-patterned plates28 for
improved collection. However, these designs have
potential scalability issues, i.e. their implementation
at large scale in a commercially viable manner in the
CT configurations is difficult. Sontag and Saylor29
carried out a benchtop experiment of intercepting
and collecting fog droplets, where they investigated
the relative performance of cotton, nylon, and teflon
meshes of different porosity. For a relatively narrow
droplet size distribution (2–8 mm), they observed that
teflon and nylon mesh yielded the best collection effi-
ciency. Despite reporting excellent collection efficiency
(about 40%), the design suffered from a drawback
of high pressure drop (800 and 44 Pa for teflon
and nylon meshes, respectively), which in a large
scale implement (like power plant CT) will entail
high power consumption and chances of mechanical
failure of the soft mesh.19 More recently, Damak and
Varanasi30 have proposed an electrostatically driven
fog collection from CT using space charge injection.
Although the device offered high deposition efficiency,
the specific power consumption in their design is com-
parable to that of the CT fans. Recognizing the limi-
tations and challenges in the prior works, we refrained
from using (i) exotic materials systems which would
be an expensive proposition for large-scale implemen-
tations and (ii) active strategies of CT fog harvesting
which would require power. Therefore, we have pro-
posed the use of commonly available robust stainless-
steel mesh systems and adopted passive collection of
water from CT fog (no external power requirements).
Achieving high fog collection is the only major chal-
lenge in such systems, and a probe into many unan-
swered questions in identifying the root cause of the
low collection efficiency of the mesh are of worth for
further investigation. Our previous study21 already
reported the effect of the mesh fiber size and shade
coefficient (SC) (the fraction of mesh projected area
occupied by the mesh fiber material; thus large frac-
tion of mesh opening implies a low SC and vice
versa), which had shown that the best collection effi-
ciency was achieved with rectangular mesh having
0.2 mm diameter and 1.5 mm pitch, corresponding to
a SC of 20%. However, the pilot study overlooked the
fact that in the induced-draft type CT, the fog collec-
tion efficiency could have also been influenced by the
relative orientation of the fog net with respect to
the direction of the rotation of CT fan (mounted
inside the CT cell for creating the requisite mechanic-
ally induced draft).31 Because of the rotation of the
CT fan, the meshes mounted at different radial loca-
tions in a full-scale CT fog harvesting system cell will
experience different tangential velocity components of
the fog stream (as will be explained in Section
‘‘Angular velocity vector of the drift flow stream’’).
It is intuitive that these meshes, installed at different
radial locations in the CT-cell, need to be oriented at
different inclinations for the best for interception and
collection. Hence, studying the effect of varying the
mesh inclination is of paramount importance from a
practical standpoint. Apart from the above, the work
in Ghosh et al.21 did not investigate and explain from
a fundamental viewpoint, the relative contributions of
the deposition efficiency (the fraction of droplets that
eventually hits the mesh wire surface to get deposited)
Ghosh and Ganguly
and the drainage efficiency (the fraction of deposited
droplets that rolls down the mesh and gets collected at
the designated collector). The effect of the size of the
collected droplets on clogging, re-entrainment and
dripping were not identified either.
In our present study, we have performed in situ
fog capture experiments in the CT of an operating
thermal power plant and have characterized the fog
capture efficiency in terms of the interaction of the
oncoming flow and deposited water droplets with
the mesh. For consistency with our prior work, the
mesh configuration yielding the best collection has
been adopted. We report the variation in fog collec-
tion due to the change in the relative orientation of
the fog net with the tangential velocity component
(arising out of the CT fan rotation) of the fog-laden
wind flow stream. To explain the observed results, we
evaluate the trends of the aerodynamic, deposition,
and drainage efficiencies. The aerodynamic efficiency
of the mesh and pressure drop across it are predicted
through a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simu-
lation using a commercial software. The deposition
efficiency is evaluated from a Stokesian analysis
of fog droplet transport near the cylindrical mesh
fibers. Finally, the drainage efficiency is estimated by
dividing the measured overall collection efficiency by
the estimated aerodynamic and deposition efficiencies.
The observed trend of drainage efficiency is further
explained in light of a force-balance model that con-
siders the gravity, surface tension and hydrodynamic
drag forces on a deposited droplet on a mesh fiber.
Finally, we distill the results to propose the optimal
orientation of the fog net to collect maximum fog
droplets (drift) coming out of the CT.
Material and methods
The mesh and its characterization
The details of the material system are provided in our
earlier publication.21 The fog-capture mesh is made of
corrosion-resistant stainless steel (grade SS 304) wire
having 0.2 mm diameter (procured from the local
market) and woven in a single-layer orthogonal grid.
The mesh was fitted to a triangular metal frame,
making a fog net surface area of 0.017 m2. The
chosen mesh had SC ¼ 20% corresponding to a
pitch of 1.5 mm. The size and specification of the
mesh is chosen from the conclusion of our previous
study21 where several meshes with different frame
sizes were investigated to have optimum collection.
The lower edges of the fog net were fitted with thin
plastic channels (headers) to guide the captured water
to the measuring cylinder (the collector). The wett-
ability of the wire used is estimated from dynamic
contact angle measurement technique32 using a goni-
ometer (make: Holmarc Opto-mechatronics Pvt. Ltd).
For the as-received sample of wire mesh, the advan-
cing ðadv Þ and receding (rec ) contact angles for a
3
water drop (surface tension 72 mNm1) were found
to be 110  2 and 24  1 , respectively (refer to
Appendix 1). This provides evidence that the mesh
offers a relatively large contact angle hysteresis to
water droplets on them.
Experimental procedure
The entire experiment was carried on-site at a fully
operating induced-draft type wet CT (Make: NBCC
Limited). All fog collection experiments were per-
formed on top of the CT cell at a temperature of
40–42  C and a relative humidity (RH) of 100%.
The fog net was positioned well above the induced-
draft type CT fan plane, about 30 cm below the exit
plane of the cell and at a radial position of 3 m (i.e.
2 m measured from the wall of the cell, radius of the
CT cell is 5 m) using a metal frame mounted on a
mesh holder. Mesh location is chosen to eliminate
any effect due to the presence of CT wall and disturb-
ances from external wind. Near the exit plane of the
CT cell, water vapor in the rising humid air plume
condenses because of cooling by the ambient air, to
form visible fog. The fog velocity was measured using
a handheld digital anemometer (Make: Nunes
Instruments, Precision of 0.1 ms1); for the entire dur-
ation of experimental runs, the mean fog velocity was
found to be constant at 4.2 ms1. With the extre-
mely high Reynolds number associated with the fog
stream (for CT cell diameter 10 m and flow velocity
4 m/s, Re 0.5  107), the fog plume velocity profile
in the CT cell is expected to have a nearly flat axial
velocity profile.33 The angle of the drift velocity
coming out of the CT cell was calculated with an in-
house, hand-held windsock with protractor fitted to it.
Keeping in view the relative orientation of the
rising fog streams in a CT, two logical configurations
of fog net arrangements for tapping the fog droplets
are possible. These are termed as orientations P1 and
P2, which make angles – and þ with the vertical
(positive angle measured in counter-clockwise direc-
tion), respectively (see Figure 1). Viewing from the
top, the direction of rotation of the induced-draft
(ID)-Fan was clockwise. The fog nets were fixed at
several different magnitudes of  (in both positive
and negative directions), ranging between 15 and 85
degrees, at intervals of 10 degrees. These readings
were repeated separately for setups mounted in P1
and P2 orientations. Water collection experiments
for each case were performed over duration of
20 min. All runs at a particular orientation (of the
fog net) were recorded for at least five times every
day over a period of six consecutive days.
Angular velocity vector of the drift flow stream
Collection trends reported in the next section will be
explained in light of the relative orientation between
the fog stream and the mesh in P1 and P2
4 Proc IMechE Part A: J Power and Energy 0(0)

Figure 1. Schematics of cooling tower (CT) fog collector having fog nets placed with orientations (a) P1 and (b) P2. End-views (as
seen from the side of the mesh-holder) show the mesh orientations P1 and P2 with respect to the peripheral/tangential (Vt) and
vertical (Vz) components of fog stream velocity. The tangential component arises from the rotation of the CT fan blades. The meshes
make angle  with the vertical. The direction of flow stream makes a vortex angle b with the vertical. The fog stream impinges on each
mesh at two different mesh-impingement angle , even for the same  for P1 and P2 configurations.

orientations. The drift flow stream is inclined at an

angle b ¼ 30 with the vertical (Figure 1), as measured
by the windsock. Thus, the actual angle of impinge-
ment  of the fog droplet on the mesh depends both
on  and b. As evident from Figure 1, the value of  at
a given  differs in orientations P1 and P2. Following
the angular geometry described in Figure 1, and reck-
oning that  denotes an acute angle, its value for
orientation P1 can be expressed as
 ¼þ for 0hhð90  Þ and
ð1Þ
 ¼ 180     for ð90  Þh
Similarly, for orientation P2, the angle of fog
impingement may be expressed as
 ¼þ for 0hh and  ¼    for h
ð2Þ
A graphical correlation describing the variation of
 on  is shown in Appendix 2 Figure 18.
Factors influencing the fog collection efficiency
The total collection efficiency in the present study was
estimated by measuring the water collection data ðmw Þ
over the duration of time  from the experiment. The
projected area of the fog net placed at the fog stream
in the direction of the fog flow is represented as Ap .
Following the design and operation specification of
the CT manufacturer34 under full-load condition,
the CW flow for a 500 MWe CT is 54,000 m3 h1
and the drift loss for a healthy CT hovers around
0.2% of the CW flow. The drift mass flux figure of
the CT under investigation did conform to the above
specification as per the performance guarantee test
data of the vendor35 and other technical reports.36
Moreover, to eliminate the seasonal variation of the
CT performance, all tests were performed within
a narrow band of ambient conditions (dry bulb tem-
perature within 28  0.5  C and RH between 70 and
75%), and nearly constant temperature and RH at the
CT cell exit plane as explained in section
Ghosh and Ganguly
‘‘Experimental procedure’’. This corresponds to a drift
mass flux per unit projected area of the CT cell outlet
to be m00drift ¼ 86 L/ m2 h. The overall collection effi-
ciency, coll , defined as the ratio of collection rate per
unit projected area of the mesh to the oncoming drift
mass flux, may be expressed as
 
mw
coll ¼ m00 drift ð3Þ
Ap
CFD study for calculating aerodynamic efficiency and
validation. CFD simulation was carried out to calcu-
late the aerodynamic efficiency over a wider range
of . The impingement angle  is dependent both on
the mesh inclination angle of the setup () and the
vortex angle (b) as furnished in Figure 1. Although
our earlier study21 adopted a linear superposition
theory22 to predict the a , the theory did not offer
accurate value of a for low values of . Hence, we
have used a commercial, finite-volume-based CFD
software (ANSYS v15.0) for simulating the air flow
field over the fog net.37 We have assumed a two-
dimensional flow field, where a 0.1 m wide fog net at
different orientations with the oncoming air stream,
i.e. at different angles of impingement  (refer to
Figure 18) is considered. The aerodynamic efficiency
is expected to be solely dependent on the impingement
angle . The geometry of the fog net considered in the
CFD study was chosen as per its dimensions used in
the experiment—the wires of the mesh had a diameter
of 0.2 mm and their spacing corresponded to mesh SC
of 20%. A computational domain of 1.8 m  0.7 m
was chosen with the mesh placed equidistant (0.9 m)
from the inlet and outlet and from the two walls
(0.3 m on each side). Thus the mesh may be assumed
to be sufficiently away from the domain boundaries to
have any interference of the boundary on the flow.
A sketch of the computational domain is shown in
Figure 2. Similar domain selection for CFD-based
studies were previously found in literatures where
pressure drop modeling of monofilament-woven fab-
rics have been studied.38
Figure 2. Schematic of the computational domain with the boundary conditions. Inset shows the grid structure around the mesh
wires. Plane A is at 500 mm upstream of the mesh, while Plane B is at 1 mm downstream.
5
The Pressure-based solver built-in ANSYS was
used for the study—the Coupled scheme was used
for solving the momentum and continuity equations.
The standard k  " method was adopted with the
default parameters of ANSYS.39 No-slip condition
was used on the mesh wire surfaces. The other bound-
ary conditions are imposed as depicted in Figure 2.
A first-order upwind scheme was used for discret-
ization of the advective–diffusive momentum equa-
tion while the pressure term was discretized using
the Standard scheme of Fluent. The Least square
cell-based scheme was chosen for gradient term.
The first-order upwind scheme was also selected for
solving the turbulent kinetic energy (k) and turbulent
dissipation rate (e). The Standard initialization is used
for getting solutions relative to cell zone condition.
The velocity of the air stream, mass flow rate, and
pressure were evaluated at two planes—one at the
far upstream (plane A in Figure 2) and the other
immediately after the mesh (plane B in Figure 2) for
all orientation angles () of the mesh. The inlet vel-
ocity of flow for all cases corresponded to that of a
fully operating type CT (4.2 ms1 as chosen in our
experiment).
The ANSYS meshing package was used to create a
quadrilateral two-dimensional structured grid. A
detailed grid-independence study was carried out for
the vertical orientation of the fog net ( ¼ 90 ) and a
flow velocity to be 4.2 ms1. The differential pressure
p (Pa) across the fog net (between plane A and B of
Figure 2) was evaluated from the simulations to com-
pare the results obtained with different mesh reso-
lutions—ranging from coarsest one (7000-node, 6979
elements) to the finest (32,520 nodes, 32,180 elem-
ents). The results were found to become independent
of mesh resolution beyond a node size of 21,000 (see
Figure 3). Details of the optimum computational
mesh chosen from the grid-independence study is
described in Table 1.
The simulation was validated against prior experi-
mental results40 carried out under the same geometry
and flow conditions. The pressure drop across the fog
net from the simulation is compared with that
6 Proc IMechE Part A: J Power and Energy 0(0)

Figure 4. Plot to validate our CFD simulation with previous

experimental study.40
Figure 3. Grid independence test for simulation: variation of
pressure drop across the mesh at different mesh resolutions.
For all cases, a ¼ 90 , Vo ¼ 4.2 ms1.

stream flow about a fog net and does not take into
account the fog droplets which have finite inertia. It
Table 1. Computational grid/mesh statistics is important to note that the solid structures (e.g. the
used for simulation. cylindrical wires of the mesh) placed in the path of the
wind stream divert the streamlines around them; thus
Nodes 21,483
the fraction of wind stream that was directed toward
Elements 21,030
the solid area projected on its path (i.e. the fraction
Minimum orthogonal quality 0.63 that defines a ) does not eventually impinge on the
Maximum aspect ratio 7.2 mesh wire and pass through the mesh opening. This
Element size 0.62 mm is accounted for by the dp . Actual deposition of the
liquid fog droplets eventually happens because of their
finite inertia as they tend to migrate across the carrier
obtained from the correlation proposed in Armour flow streamlines and impinge on the solid wire surfaces.
and Canon,40 which expressed the friction factor as The fog droplet migration depends both on the inertia
of the individual droplets, local acceleration in flow,
pgc "2 D and the viscosity of the carrier phase. The governing
f¼ ð4Þ non-dimensional parameter is the Stokes number
Lu2

where gc ¼ 9.81, e is the void fraction of mesh, D is the tparticle 2water r2fog . R
screen pore diameter, L is the fluid path length,  is the St ¼ ¼ ð5Þ
tflow 9 air Vo
density of fluid, and u is the approach velocity. It is
worth noting that the equation (4) proposed in Armour which denotes the ratio of the response time of a par-
and Canon40 is applicable for 0.35 4 e 4 0.8. Figure 4 ticle to that of the surrounding flow.41 In equation (5),
depicts the comparison of pressure drop across a rfog denotes the radius of the fog droplet, R is the
porous screen with data from simulation results and radius of mesh fiber, air is the viscosity of air, water
from equation (4) with respect to a range of different is the fog drop density, and Vo is the velocity of flow
approach velocities (0.5 ms1 to 8.0 ms1) of the fog stream. Reckoning the wire mesh comprising of cylin-
stream at an impingement angle  ¼ 90 and e ¼ 0.8. drical fibers, the droplet size-dependent deposition
From Figure 4, it is apparent that the simulated efficiency r,dp ðrÞ can be expressed as equation (6).42,43
result slightly under-predicts the pressure drop data .
over Armour and Canon.40 This difference, which

r,dp ðrÞ ¼ St St þ ð6Þ
may be attributed to the simplified representation of 2
the fog net in the simulation (as set of parallel wires
instead of interwoven mesh), may be ignored since the For a polydispersed droplet distribution, the over-
trend in the two curves match very well. all deposition efficiency dp may be calculated by sum-
ming the product of r,dp ðrÞ and the fractional mass
Deposition and drainage efficiency. As discussed earlier,22 distribution of fog droplet for each size range of the
the overall fog collection is further reduced by two droplet size spectrum, i.e.
factors, viz., deposition efficiency (dp ) and the drain- X
age efficiency (dr ). The interpretation of aerodynamic dp ¼ r,dp ðrÞ  mðrÞ ð7Þ
efficiency provided above is restricted to the wind
Ghosh and Ganguly
Figure 5. Factors affecting the drainage efficiency: (a) re-entrainment of deposited droplets, (b) premature dripping of bigger
droplets due to gravity, and (c) smaller droplets causing clogging of mesh. Droplets draining/sliding down the mesh, shown in (a) and
(b), contribute to collection.
Out of the deposited liquid, only a fraction
(quantified through the drainage efficiency dr ) can
be successfully collected from the mesh in the
bottom-collector. As already pointed out earlier,21 a
part of the deposited liquid may get re-entrained with
the flow, while another may detach from the mesh
because of gravity and drip down in the CT basin;
only the remaining fraction of deposited water
would slide down the mesh into the designated collec-
tor. From an operational perspective, the fraction of
water dripping back into the CT should be minimized,
since these otherwise impinge on the CT fan blades or
even gets re-entrained back in the flow. Prior study by
our group21 showed that the size and shape of the
mesh would influence the extent of premature drip-
ping. The present study focuses on the influence of
the inclination angle on dripping from the mesh for
a fixed sized collector.
If the mesh material has high affinity to water
(hydrophilicity), a fraction of the deposited liquid
would also stay pinned onto the mesh surface. This
would cause clogging of the fog net; completely
clogged cells of the mesh do not further contribute
to the fog collection as the fog laden flow is diverted
away from the clogged cells. Figure 5 schematically
explains these phenomena for any deposited droplet
on a fog net placed in the flow stream. All these com-
ponents constitute loss of collection from the mesh
and are collectively factored in terms of drainage
efficiency.
The overall collection efficiency of the mesh
accounts for all these factors, and may be expressed
as the product of the individual efficiencies (equation
(8)), i.e.
coll ¼ a :dp :dr
Results and discussions
The following section starts with experimental results
of fog collection in a full-scale CT of a power plant.
7
Water collection data are corroborated by estimation
of aerodynamic efficiency through the CFD solution,
the deposition efficiency from Stokes number, and
the drainage efficiency explained using a force balance
analysis.
Fog collection experiments at different mesh
orientations in CT
Fog collection experiments were carried out at the
outlet plane of the CT cell by placing the fog net at
different angular orientations  (similar to our previ-
ous study).21 The same setup was repeated for the two
mesh orientations P1 and P2 (refer to Figure 1). All
the other operating parameters, e.g. the mesh size, its
inclination angle with vertical, flow velocity remained
same for the two configurations. With respect to a
purely vertically rising fog stream, the angle with
which the fog stream impinge on the mesh for the
orientations P1 and P2 would have been identical
(). However, due to the rotational motion of the
induced-draft fan at the CT cell, the fog stream
ahead of the mesh was found to have both axial and
tangential components of velocity. The hand-held
windsock in the path of the wind-stream showed a
vortex angle b ¼ 30 (see Figure 1) subtended by the
rising fog stream velocity vector with the vertical.
Since the fog nets in the two configurations were
inclined with the vertical by the same angle , but in
positive and negative direction, the projected areas of
the mesh facing the direction of fog stream differ in P1
and P2. To directly compare the collection data and
to understand the variation of the collection in fog
water, a typical single layer wire mesh having 20%
SC was used for all the readings in the entire study.
ð8Þ Figure 6 reports the actual collection data recorded at
the different magnitudes of  for the orientations P1
and P2. Data were recorded at least five times every
day over a period of six consecutive days for all the
positions considered.
Fog collection data at a few discrete orientation
angles of the fog net (viz.  ¼ 15 , 25 , 35 , 45 , 55 ,
8 Proc IMechE Part A: J Power and Energy 0(0)
Figure 6. Water collection over the duration of 20 min at
different inclinations of the fog nets for orientations P1 and P2.
Error bars denote the 95% confidence intervals in the collec-
tion data at each operating condition.
65 , 75 , and 85 ) showed that the collection rates
were higher for the mesh orientation P1 than that
for position P2 for all  values. For the mesh orien-
tation P2, the water collection is found to decrease
monotonically with . On the contrary, the collection
curve for P1 first increases with , attains a maximum
at  ¼ 25 , and decreases at higher . A careful com-
parison of the two configurations in Figure 1 indicates
a salient difference in the relative orientation of the
fog plume with respect to the mesh. In P1 configur-
ation, the fog plume hits only the lower face, i.e. the
windward face of the mesh for all values of . On
the contrary, for the configuration P2, the fog plume
hits the upper surface (leeward face) for  < b, and the
lower surface for b < .
The value of coll , evaluated from equation (3), is
plotted as a function of  in Figure 7 to compare the
relative collection for the configurations P1 and P2.
Since the effective projected area of the mesh with
respect to the oncoming fog stream changes with ,
both the denominator and the numerators of equation
(3) vary with the mesh inclination angle. The plots in
Figure 7 show monotonically decreasing trends of coll
with increasing  for both P1 and P2 orientations,
with highest collection efficiency occurring at  ¼ 15
for both. Additionally, as also seen in Figure 6, the
coll is higher for P1 (than that for P2) orientation at
all values of .
This observation corroborates to the fact that the
rising fog stream is not intercepting with fog nets
identically for both P1 and P2 configurations due to
the presence of the radial component of velocity
caused by the rotational motion of CT fan. The max-
imum collection efficiency for configuration P1 is
16%. Although this collection efficiency reported
for a single mesh placed may differ from a full-scale
mesh implement, we surmise that the results will not
be far off. For a scaled-up version of the CT fog-net
installations, one would seek to install the same mesh,
Figure 7. The overall collection efficiency at different mesh
inclinations for the orientations P1 and P2. Error bars denote
the 95% confidence intervals at each operating condition.
but either with a larger transverse spread (i.e. higher
mesh aspect ratio) or in an array of multiple nets.
It is established that large aspect ratio flat meshes
have better collection efficiency, the drag coefficient,
and aerodynamic efficiency increases by 69.5% and
8.3%, respectively, as the mesh aspect ratio is
increased from unity to infinity.33 Therefore, a con-
servative estimate of collection for a full-scale CT for
500 MWe unit amounts to a saving of 17 m3/h of
water. This saving of water comes at the expense of
an additional pressure drop across the mesh, for
which the CT fan would require additional power.
The pressure drop evaluated from CFD analysis (see
Section ‘‘Aerodynamic efficiency’’) enables computa-
tion of this additional power requirement.
Aerodynamic efficiency
Introducing a fog net in the flow poses a partial
obstruction in the flow field, altering the oncoming
flow.44 Aerodynamic efficiency ða Þ denotes the frac-
tion of the unperturbed oncoming flow which is dir-
ected toward the projected solid area22 (i.e. the wires
of the mesh in the present case). Since experimental
measurement of aerodynamic efficiency was not feas-
ible in the CT, the same was computed from the fog
flow pattern past the mesh using a CFD analysis.
Having the CFD code validated for the pressure
drop data, simulation is run for different values
of . Figure 8 shows one representative simulation
for  ¼ 45 , depicting the flow streamline and the
pressure distribution about the mesh obstacle.
The aerodynamic efficiency was directly calculated
by multiplying the effective SC of the mesh with the
ratio of the mass flow rates across the mesh to the
mass flow rate flowing through the same projected
area if the mesh were not present, i.e.
m_ B
a ¼ SCeff ð9Þ
m_ A
Ghosh and Ganguly 9

Figure 8. Flow field showing the velocity vectors (m/s) and the pressure (Pa) distribution contours of the domain for  ¼ 45. Inset
shows the velocity vectors in the vicinity of the mesh.

The mass flow rates, m_ A and m_ B , through the mesh-

projected area, computed at the immediate down-
stream (plane B in Figure 2) of the mesh plane and
at its far upstream (plane A in the same figure), respect-
ively, were calculated from the CFD results. The SCeff
values in equation (9) represents the fractional solid
area offered by the mesh fibers perpendicular to the
flow incident to the mesh, which differs from the regu-
lar SC values for the different inclinations as described
in Appendix 2 of Ghosh et al.21
The nature of a curves from the CFD analysis and
from superposition theory are similar (Figure 9),
although the values predicted from the simulation
slightly exceeds the theoretical one.22 This deviation Figure 9. Comparison between aerodynamic efficiency values
may be attributed to the deflection of the wind stream derived separately using CFD (Ansys Fluent) and based on the
in the vicinity of the mesh wires, which are ignored in principle of superposition stated in Rivera.22
the theoretical model.22
The additional power consumption due to the pres-
sure drop across the mesh raises an obvious question 90 kW, and there are 16 CT cells in each CT.34 For
regarding the energy penalty in the process. For a  ¼ 45 orientation (Figure 8), it is  ¼ 15 for orienta-
given pressure drop p across the mesh, additional tion P1—the mesh installation with the highest coll , the
power loss PF in the CT fan may be expressed as p  6.73 Pa corresponding to an additional fan power
of 4.22 kW per CT cell (i.e. additional power consumed
p m_ a is 67.46 kW for the 16 CT cells, see Table 2), which is
PF ¼ ð10Þ
CTF only 4.7% of the CT fan power. It may be seen (from
Table 2) that the energy penalty of collected fog-water
where m_ a denotes the mass flow rate of the humid air at the best-efficiency point (i.e. configuration P1 at
through the CT and CTF is the CT fan efficiency (which  ¼ 15 ) is 3.9 kWh/m3.
lies between 71 and 81%).35,45 Traditionally, the CT fan Figure 10 shows the variation of the additional
power for each CT cell of a 500 MWe power plant is power requirement by the CT fan (expressed as
10 Proc IMechE Part A: J Power and Energy 0(0)

Table 2. Additional energy consumption (by cooling tower fan) and water collection data for the con-
ditions described for P1 configuration in Figure 6.

gcoll for P1 Fog water Specific energy

a p m00 ma PF 16PF (from collection consumption
(deg) (Pa) (kg/m2)a (kg/s)b (kW)c (kW) Figure 7) (m3/h)d (kWh/m3)e

15 6.73 6.35 498.2 4.22 67.46 0.16 17.28 3.9

25 6.03 6.57 515.9 3.91 62.59 0.11 11.88 5.3
35 4.41 6.97 547.0 3.03 48.53 0.08 8.64 5.6
45 4.26 6.94 545.0 2.92 46.68 0.05 5.40 8.6
55 3.9 7.01 550.5 2.70 43.19 0.02 2.16 20.0
65 3.74 7.14 560.9 2.64 42.21 0.02 2.16 19.5
CT: cooling tower.
a
Mass flux of air across the mesh per unit projected area of the mesh.
b
Mass flow rate in each CT cell of the 500 MW unit.
c
The increased power consumption of the CT fans for one cell of the 500 MW unit following equation (10) and assuming
CT fan efficiency of 71%. Total mass flow rate of the 16 CT cell is 16 times of this figure.
d
Total water collection from the 16 cells of cooling tower, considering (i) the CW flow for a 500 MWe CT is 54,000 m3
h1 and (ii) the drift loss figure for a healthy cooling tower is 0.2% of the CW flow.34
e
The energy consumed (in terms of additional fan work) to affect each m3 of collected water.

Figure 11. Aerodynamic efficiency at different inclinations of

Figure 10. Variation of additional cooling tower (CT) fan
power consumption (expressed as % of the base CT fan power)
with the fog inclination angle a for the P1 orientation (base CT fan
power is assumed to be 90 kW and CT fan efficiency is assumed
to be 71%).
% of the base CT fan power) at P1 orientation (as P1
configuration has better overall collection compared
to P2) of the fog net. The energy penalty is maximum
at low  (for which the collection efficiency is also the
maximum), but its value is within 6% of the base CT
fan power consumption even reckoning the lowest
value of CTF (¼71%). It may be worth noting that
the pressure drop data observed in the present study
is nearly one order of magnitude smaller than those
reported by Sontag and Saylor for their nylon wires,29
while the mesh effectiveness (quantified in terms of
the ratio of collection efficiency to the pressure
drop) of the present study is found to be comparable
to the best case scenarios of Sontag and Saylor29
(see Figure 19 of Appendix 3).
the fog net for the orientations P1 and P2. The plot is based on
the flow data obtained from the CFD simulation.
Variation of a with  may be translated to that
as a function of the mesh inclination angle  and
the orientation configurations using Figure 18
(Appendix 2). The variation of the computed a for
different inclination angles  of the mesh with respect
to the vertical is plotted in Figure 11 for both orien-
tations. This shows that a is higher for P2 than that
for P1 for all values of . Due to the effect of the
vortex angle , the P1 installations have larger
values of  (refer to Appendix 2) compared to that
in P2. For the P2 setup, the fog nets demonstrate a
very high SCeff in the range 25 <  < 35 due to the
associated low  values.
For example, at  ¼ 5 , the mesh wire obstructs the
oncoming flow almost like a solid body with no voids
visible from the oncoming flow side. As a result, the
mesh P2 records high a over a range 15 5  5 45 .
On the contrary, the value of  for configuration P1
Ghosh and Ganguly
Figure 12. The product of deposition and drainage efficiency
for the 20% SC fog net at different inclinations of the fog net for
the orientations P1 and P2.
lies between a relatively narrow span 45 to 85 over
the entire range 0 5  5 90 , and hence, the a value
for P1 does not vary more than 10% for the entire
domain (see Figure 11).
Comparing the trends of overall collection effi-
ciency (Figure 7) and the aerodynamic efficiency
(Figure 11), it clearly indicates that the two trends
differ, which is suggestive of other factors playing
roles as well. To estimate variation of the deposition
and drainage efficiency on the collection, the overall
collection efficiency value is divided by the aero-
dynamic efficiency, so that
  coll
dp :dr ¼
a
 
Figure 12 shows the variation of dp :dr as a
function of . To explain the variation, the two effi-
ciency terms are investigated separately in the follow-
ing sections.
Deposition efficiency
The CTs investigated here use three-segment (also
known as H1-V type) drift eliminators that are
mounted in the CT cells and is under periodic main-
tenance.35 Prior experimental36 and numerical46
studies have shown that these drift eliminators exhibit
a typical sigmoid curve for droplet interception
efficiency—capture efficiency increases sharply from
single digit values to nearly 100% for drift droplet
size in the range from 25 mm to 60 mm. Hence,
the exit plume of the drift eliminators, which is also
the flow leading to the fog-harvesting meshes in our
present case, will predominantly have droplets smaller
than the threshold size of 60 mm. Rothman and
Ledbetter18 found a typical bimodal frequency distri-
bution for CT plume fog droplets, following which,
Appendix 4 shows that the typical distribution of
mass fraction of the drift droplets in the CT plume
mostly lie in the range of 5–50 mm. Considering a
stream velocity 4.2 m/s (anemometer data),
11
Figure 13. Drainage efficiency for the 20% SC fog net at dif-
ferent inclinations of the fog net for the orientations P1 and P2.
R  0.1 mm, and the property data for water and
air, the Stokes number for different fog droplet sizes
are found (from equation (6)) to be between 3.1 and
1245 for the above-mentioned range of droplets.
Accordingly, the dp is estimated (see Appendix 4
for details) to be 98.1% for all the positions
and orientations considered in our experiment.
Therefore, the influence of deposition efficiency on
the variation of overall collection efficiency is insig-
nificant. It is important to note that the deposited fog
water may clog the mesh pore (as discussed in the
forthcoming section) if the same is not transported
away from the mesh surface. The clogged opening
of the mesh diverts the fog flow around the mesh,
ð11Þ
thus reducing the overall aerodynamic efficiency of
the mesh. Assessing the overall impact of mesh clog-
ging warrants a detailed CFD study on a single cell of
the mesh, which is left as a future exercise.
Drainage efficiency
Figure 13 shows the variation of dr as a function
 
of (obtained by dividing the product dp :dr
by dp (98.1%, as reported in Section ‘‘Deposition
 which for obvious reason resembles
efficiency’’)),

the dp :dr plot of Figure 12. As apparent from
Figure 13, the drainage efficiency is a strong function
of the mesh inclination angle  and the mesh orienta-
tion (P1 or P2). This warrants a deeper analysis of
what causes the marked variation.
Force analysis of a droplet on mesh
To address the extent of dripping and carryover of a
deposited fog droplet from the mesh, we now consider
the force interaction on a single droplet that is resting
on a cylindrical fiber of a mesh. A deposited water
droplet, having hemispherical cap shape with radius
rdrop , sitting on a wire mesh placed transversely in the
fog stream would experience three principal forces:
the self-weight Fgrav of the liquid (acting downward),
the wind drag Fdrag (acting in the direction of the
12 Proc IMechE Part A: J Power and Energy 0(0)

flow), and the liquid–solid contact line pinning force.
The latter again has two components—the adhesion
Fa acting normal to the plane, opposing droplet
detachment from the mesh surface, and the contact
angle hysteresis FCAH acting along the plane, oppos-
ing the sliding of the droplet along the substrate.
A detailed analysis of the force balance and the role
of droplet size on the expected droplet behavior, e.g.
whether it gets carried over by the flow, prematurely
drips down due to gravity, clogs the mesh, or rolls
down the mesh for collection (see Figure 5), is dis-
cussed in Appendix 5.
It ensues from the force balance analysis (see
Appendix 5) that the deposited droplet should (i)
grow beyond a size termed critical radius of re-
entrainment (re ) to get entrained by the drag force,
(ii) should stay below a critical clogging radius (rc )
to remain pinned on the mesh, thus clogging the
mesh pore, or (iii) grow bigger than a critical dripping
radius (rdrip ) when it falls down prematurely due to
gravity. Relative overlap between these radii, includ-
ing the fact that re can even assume even imaginary
values (see Table 3 and the supporting discussion in
Appendix 5), gives rise to different possibilities of
droplet behavior, which is qualitatively summarized
in Figure 14. For example, if rdrip 5 rc , and re min
and re max have negative or imaginary values, the
droplet will remain tethered to the fiber, causing
mesh clogging, until it grows to rdrip and then drips
down (Case F of Figure 14). For such a case,
deposited water will either clog the mesh or drip pre-
maturely, resulting in no collection. If rc 5 rdrip
(Case E) or rc 5 re min (Case D), the fog droplets will
grow to the size of rc , beyond which it will slide down
the mesh and get collected. On the other hand, if
re min is the smallest of the three radii (Case A, B,
and C of Figure 14), mesh clogging will occur until
the droplet grows to re min , beyond which it will
re-entrain into the flow. Therefore, for a gradually
growing droplet on the fiber, Cases A, B, and C are
not favorable for collection.
However, the droplets on a mesh fiber may also
grow in discrete quanta (featuring sudden jump in
rdrop ) due to coalescence of multiple droplets. For
example, in Cases B and C of Figure 14, if more
than one droplet (of initial size less than re min ) on
the mesh coalesce to a size exceeding re max and rc ,
but smaller than rdrip , the coalesced droplet will slide
down the mesh into the collector. As it is pointed
above, for a gradually growing droplet, Cases D and
E provide a conducive condition for high drainage
efficiency. However, for situations when two or
more droplets of radii smaller than rc coalesce to
form a bigger droplet of radius larger than rdrip , a

Table 3. Analytical expressions of the critical radii (rdrip , re , and rc ) under different inclinations of the fog net. (See Appendix 5 for the
supporting discussion).

Study considered Critical radius Derived value

2
Conventional atmospheric fog re p
¼ 4
 LV Sin ð1þCosrec Þ
n air Vo2 CD ðSinCosÞ
capture configuration42 qffiffiffi qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
rc q 12LV ðCosrec Cosadv Þ
m¼
water gBð3þB2 Þ
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Configuration P1 Case P1 a: rdrip nSinðÞþ 2
n2 Sin ðÞþ4mpSin
4ð90o  Þ,  ¼  þ  2mSin

(Figure 22(c1) and (c2))

pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
re nSinðÞ 2
n2 Sin ðÞ4mpSin
2mSin
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
rc nCosðÞþ 2
n2 Cos ðÞþ4mqCos
2mCos
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Case P1 b: 5ð90o  Þ,  ¼ 180o  ð þ Þ rdrip nSinðÞþ 2
n2 Sin ðÞþ4mpSin
(Figure 22(d1) and (d2)) 2mSin
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
re nSinðÞ 2
n2 Sin ðÞ4mpSin
2mSin
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
rc nCosðÞþ 2
n2 Cos ðÞþ4mqCos
2mCos
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Configuration P2 Case P2 a: 4,  ¼    rdrip ¼ re nSinðÞþ 2
n2 Sin ðÞþ4mpSin
(Figure 22(e1) and (e2)) 2mSin
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
rc nCosðÞþ 2
n2 Cos ðÞþ4mqCos
2mCos
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Case P2 b: 5,  ¼    rdrip nSinðÞþ 2
n2 Sin ðÞþ4mpSin
(Figure 22(f1) and (f2)) 2mSin
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
re nSinðÞ 2
n2 Sin ðÞ4mpSin
2mSin
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
rc nCosðÞþ 2
n2 Cos ðÞþ4mqCos
2mCos
 
Notes: (i) Legend: m ¼
6 B 3 þ B2 water g, n ¼ 12 air Vo2 CD ð  SinCosÞ=Sin2 , p ¼ 2
LV ð1 þ Cosrec Þ, q ¼ 2LV ðCosrec  Cosadv Þ, and B ¼ 1Cos
Sin
For the present study—m ¼ 9648:52, n ¼ 10:2, p ¼ 0:22, and q ¼ 0:18.
(ii) All positive roots are taken, since the square root of the discriminant is always greater than the first term.
Ghosh and Ganguly 13

Figure 14. Qualitative behavior of fog droplets on mesh surface depending upon the relative magnitudes of rdrip , re , and rc .

Figure 15. Variation of magnitudes of rdrip and r c with the mesh inclination angle for Case P1 and P2. Fog collection happens under
the condition r c 5 r drip . Larger value of r drip  r c implies high drainage efficiency (e.g. the case E of Figure 14). The trend corrob-
orates to the dr vs a plot of Figure 13.

direct transition from clogging regime to dripping
regime—bypassing the collection regime—may be
observed in Cases C and D. A large difference
between rc and rdrip is desirable for avoiding such a
transition and ensuring a good drainage efficiency.
Therefore, Case E is expected to show a higher drain-
age efficiency than Case D. It is important to note that
the values of rdrip , re , and rc shown in Figure 14 are
purely qualitative, but it provides an exhaustive
discussion on the behavior of collected fog droplets
on the mesh and the resulting impact on drainage
efficiency.
Having discussed the possible fate of fog droplets
depending upon the relative values of the of rdrip , re ,
and rc , we now estimate the critical radii for the pre-
sent experiments. As already mentioned before, the
experiments were conducted for  ¼ 30 , Vo ¼ 4.2 m/s.
For the metal mesh, the advancing and receding
14
contact angle of water droplets (LV ¼ 72 mN/m)
at small . For exam-
were measured at 110  2 and 24  1 (refer
Appendix 1). For the hemispherical droplet on the
mesh fiber, the drag coefficient CD was assumed to
be 1.18.21
Case E in Figure 14 that a large
From Table 3 (and the supporting discussion in
Appendix 5), considering the case for our present
study condition, ensues that re min and re max have
imaginary roots. Therefore, the fate of deposited
liquid in the present experiment is governed only by
rc and rdrip . It is apparent (see Table 3) that the values
of these two critical radii would depend upon the
mesh inclination angle . Figure 15(a) and (b) shows
the variations of rc and rdrip as functions of , where it
is seen that the difference between rc and rdrip
decreases with increase in . From the discussion in
Figure 14,  it is apparent that a larger value of
rdrip  rc leads to a higher drainage efficiency. At
larger inclination angles, the ratio drops to a low
value. This also corroborates to the observation of
decreasing trend of dr with the mesh inclination
angle. Comparing with the possible scenarios pre-
sented in Figure 14, that the mesh setup corresponds
to Case E for  < 53 for P1 and  < 45 for P2.
Beyond these inclination angles, rc 4 rdrip and the col-
lection is hindered because of premature dripping.
This explains why dr gradually dropped to zero
beyond these values of  in Figure 13.
The optimal mesh installation
As apparent from Figure 13, the highest drainage effi-
ciency within the operating regime was observed at
the smallest mesh tilt angle i.e. at  ¼ 15 for both
configurations P1 and P2. To explain this observation
in light with the foregoing discussion,
the ratio of two mounted at the exit plane of the CT cells of a fully
critical droplet radii viz. rdrip rc (as evaluated from
Table 3) is plotted as a function of the inclination
angle . It is observed from Figure 16 that the ratio
Figure 16. Ratio of critical droplet radii at different inclin-
ations and orientations for the commercially available hydrophilic
fog net used in this study.
Proc IMechE Part A: J Power and Energy 0(0)
dips steeply from a large value
ple, at  ¼ 15 , the ratio rdrip rc ¼ 2.2 for orientation
P1 and 1.78 for orientation P2. The ratios dip below
unity for  > 53 for P1 and  > 45 for P2. It is
apparent from
value of rdrip rc would imply liquid from a wide
range of droplet radii present on the mesh do not
drip from the mesh but do slide down due to gravity.
Operating regimes where the ratio is equal to or below
unity means an overlap between clogging and drip-
ping, which would lead to no collection (Case A of
Figure 14). This clearly explains that the dr , and con-
sequently the overall collection efficiency, decreases
with  primarily due to a greater tendency of prema-
ture dripping of the droplets from the mesh.
The study shows the rationale of attaining the best
fog net orientations for which the overall collection is
higher when compared to the alternate configurations.
Although the aerodynamic efficiency remains a major
deterrent to attaining high overall collection of the
mesh, the drainage efficiency can be adequately max-
imized by tuning the surface wettability of the mesh.
Here, we investigated the effect of the mesh orienta-
tion angle for improving the drainage, but the analysis
clearly insinuates the possibility of improving the
drainage efficiency further by choosing different
mesh materials29 or tuning the wettability of mesh
surface, is left as a future exercise. Findings of the
present study also lends itself to improving the per-
formance of functionalized fog nets that can be used
for decontamination of industrial fog.47
Conclusions
Water harvesting potential of inclined fog nets,
operational 500 MWe power plant, is studied and the
variation of fog collection efficiency with mesh inclin-
ation is explained in terms of the interaction of the
mesh with the oncoming fog stream and deposited
water. Besides the mesh inclination (with the vertical),
the direction of rotation of the CT fan is also found to
influence the rate of collection. The tangential velocity
component of the fan causes the fog stream to rise at
an angle b with the vertical. For a mesh, inclined at an
angle  with the vertical, the angular orientation b of
the fog stream yields two strategic configurations of
fog–mesh interactions, viz. P1 and P2, respectively,
depending upon whether the mesh tilting (by angle
) is done in the clockwise or anti-clockwise direction
with the vertical.
. For P1 orientation, fog droplets impinge on the
lower face, i.e. the windward face of the mesh for
all values of mesh inclination angle . On the con-
trary, for the orientation P2, the fog plume
impinges on the upper surface (leeward face)
when the fog stream is more inclined (with the ver-
tical) than the mesh itself. This results in a lower
Ghosh and Ganguly
collection rates for the mesh orientation P2 than
that for position P1 for all  values.
. The aerodynamic efficiency a is higher for the P2
configuration than that for P1 for all values of .
. The energy penalty of collecting fog-water at the
best-efficiency point (i.e. configuration P1 at  ¼
15 ) is 3.9 kWh/m3; pressure drop data observed
in the present study is nearly one order of magnitude
smaller than those reported in the literature, while the
mesh effectiveness, quantified in terms of the ratio of
collection efficiency to the pressure drop, of the pre-
sent study is found to be comparable.
. For the polydispersed fog droplet distribution
assumed at the CT outlet, the overall deposition
efficiency is 98%.
. The drainage efficiency depends on four competing
forces acting on the liquid droplet deposited on a
mesh fiber, viz. the weight of the droplet, drag force
of the fog stream on the droplet, adhesion roll-off
hysteresis between the collected fog droplet, and
the mesh fiber. Three salient droplet sizes, denoted
by the limiting drip radius (rdrip), entrainment
radius (re), and clogging radius (rc), are found to
play important role in influencing the drainage
behavior of the droplet. Collection is favored
when both rc and re are smaller than rdrip .
The study summarizes that positioning the fog
mesh at  ¼ 15 in the P1 configuration is most suit-
able for trapping the drift droplets at the exit plane
of the CT both in terms of effective collection effi-
ciency and additional energy penalty associated
with. The generalized recommendation of the study
is therefore to install meshes with small inclination
angles (with the vertical) and orient the mesh such
that the fog stream always hits the lower face of the
mesh, so as to maximize the aerodynamic and drain-
age efficiencies. A follow-up study with different
mesh materials under similar configuration will
characterize the drainage efficiency of the mesh as
function of their surface wettability, which is left
as a future exercise.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
ORCID iD
Ranjan Ganguly https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0742-6130
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Ghosh and Ganguly 17

Appendix 1: Contact angle measurement of liquid droplet on metal mesh

Figure 17. Images of (a) water droplets on the mesh. Sessile water droplet on individual mesh wire describing (b) the advancing
(hadv ) and receding (hrec ) contact angles. Dynamic contact angles are measured by measuring the contact angles at the leading and
trailing ends as the substrate slides quasi-statically and the contact lines exhibit simultaneous de-pinning at its advancing (right) and
receding (left) fronts.

Appendix 2: The variation of the angle of impingement (c) with inclination angle (a) of
fog net
The angle of impingement , defined as the angle subtended between the fog plume velocity vector with the
inclined mesh, would vary with the angular mesh orientation  differently for the configurations P1 and P2,
which is shown in Figure 18. For a given vortex angle  (corresponding to a fixed rotational speed of the CT
fan), the variation of  is solely dependent on the magnitude and orientation of .

Figure 18. Variation of the impingement angle () with the mesh inclination angle (a) for the two different orientations P1 and P2 of
the fog nets. Inset shows the relative positioning of the fog net and the fog stream velocity vector.
18
Appendix 3: Comparison of mesh
performance from the present study
with fog collection study of Sontag
and Saylor.29
Figure 19. Comparison of mesh performance, in terms of
collection efficiency/pressure drop plotted as function of
pressure drop, with the results of Sontag and Saylor.29 The
Steel mesh performance (present study) is found to be com-
parable to the best case scenarios of Sontag and Saylor.29
Appendix 4: Drift droplet distribution
and evaluation of overall deposition
efficiency
Size distribution of the CT fog droplets at the outlet
plane should play an important role in determining
the deposition efficiency of the droplets in flow
stream leading to the mesh. Since the experimental
measurement of drift droplet size in a full-scale CT
was beyond the scope of the current work, we have
consulted (a) the CT manufacturers’ data for the
type of drift eliminator used (this determines the
performance of the eliminator in restricting the
drift loss), cooling tower age and maintenance con-
dition, (b) the archived technical reports that have
experimentally determined the relative performance
of the different types of drift eliminators (under simi-
lar conditions of our in-situ experiment), and (c)
research articles based on laboratory experiments/
numerical simulations that determined the droplet
distribution for same type of drift eliminators. We
have also leveraged the findings of previous literature
that have reported droplet size distribution at the
cooling tower exits, based on experiments replicated
in similar conditions in a laboratory prototype (e.g.
using the photomicrography to find the droplet size
distribution for setup).18,48 The typical bimodal fre-
quency distribution N(r) found in Rothman and
Ledbetter18 of CT plume fog droplets measured
Proc IMechE Part A: J Power and Energy 0(0)
Figure 20. Droplet frequency distribution N(r) (secondary
y-axis) as reported by Rothman and Ledbetter,18 and the cor-
responding mass fraction m(r) distribution of CT fog as a
function of the droplet radius.
over eight size ranges (bins) in the range of 5–
100 mm (shown in the secondary y axis of Figure
20). The figure also shows the corresponding distri-
bution of mass fraction m(r), along its primary y-
axis, denoting the fraction of the droplet mass in a
particular size range as a function of droplet radius,
which is computed as
r3 NðrÞ
mðrÞ ¼ P 3 ð12Þ
r NðrÞ
The oncoming droplet size distribution has a direct
influence on the deposition efficiency on the mesh.
The individual contribution of all the droplets lying
in the different size ranges are now calculated in the
revised manuscript. The droplet size-dependent
deposition efficiency r,dp ðrÞ in our study is calculated
following equation (6) (see Figure 21(a)). Considering
the oncoming droplet distribution from the m(r) vs
rfog plot of Figure 20, the corresponding mass-based
fractional deposition of droplet in different size bins
are plotted in Figure 21(b), which clearly shows an
effective deposition in the size range between 15 and
50 mm and in a narrow band at 2.5 mm. For the
polydispersed droplet distribution (Figure 20), the
overall deposition efficiency dp was calculated by
summing the product of r,dp ðrÞ and the fractional
mass distribution mðrÞ of fog droplet over each size
range of the droplet size spectrum, i.e.
X
dp ¼ r,dp ðrÞ  mðrÞ ð13Þ
The corresponding overall deposition efficiency for
the present case is evaluated as dp ¼ 98:1%.
Ghosh and Ganguly 19

Appendix 5: Force balance on a sessile
deposited water droplet on the mesh
The understanding of the force interaction on a sessile
deposited droplet is essential to determine the condi-
tions of optimum drainage. Park et al.42 proposed a
scaling analysis of forces on sessile liquid droplets on
6 r3drop 1Cos
a vertical mesh (for atmospheric fog capture) and sug-
gested two critical radii for water droplet on the mesh,
i.e. critical radius of re-entrainment (re ) and the criti-
cal radius of mesh clogging (rc ). The study was valid
for the fog conditions (14rfog 440 mm, 14Vo
410 ms1 ). For a single droplet having the shape of
a section of a hemispherical cap, the aerodynamic
drag force is expressed as41
1 net and the fog stream are inclined at angles  and b ,
Fdrag  air V2o CD Ap
2 respectively, with the vertical. The directions of the
where air , CD , and Ap denote the density of air, the
drag coefficient (of the hemispherical section of dro-
plet in the air stream), and the projected droplet area,
respectively. From geometry of the droplet, the pro-
jected area may be expressed in terms of the rdrop and
the sessile contact angle  (average of the advancing
and receding contact angle) as
n o
Ap ¼ r2drop ð  SinCosÞ=Sin2 
The adhesion force experienced by the droplet
depends on the surface tension LV of water, the con-
tact line length L  2
rdrop of the droplet on the mesh to contact angle hysteresis and adhesion are self-
wire, and the receding contact angle rec of the droplet
on the mesh wire surface, so that49
Fa ¼ 2
rdrop LV ð1 þ Cosrec Þ ð16Þ
A droplet on the mesh grows bigger as it intercepts
more fog droplets, and eventually clogs the mesh,
unless the liquid droplet slides down the wire because
of gravity. The weight of a hemispherical cap section
of the liquid is
Fgrav ¼ water gV ð17Þ
h  2 i
where V ¼
Sin 3 þ 1Cos
Sin , while the sur-
face pinning force arising from contact angle hyster-
esis may be expressed as
FCAH  2rdrop LV ðCosrec  Cosadv Þ ð18Þ
where adv denotes the advancing contact angle of
water droplet on the mesh surface.
The analysis of Park et al.42 is modified in our
present study of fog interception, where both the fog
ð14Þ
forces Fdrag , Fa , FCAH changes with , , and  under
the present scenario, and will alter the critical radius
values of re , rc from those reported in Park et al.42
Moreover, the problem associated with the premature
dripping of large deposited droplets under the gravity
(as depicted in Figure 5(b))—which was not encoun-
tered in Idel’chik handbook44—is also to be consid-
ered separately in the present case. Figure 22(b) shows
the force distribution diagram for the inclined mesh
ð15Þ scenario influencing a hemispherical water droplet
pinned on the surface of the mesh. As mentioned
before, the Fdrag is aligned with the direction of the
flow, while Fgrav acts vertically downward from the
surface of the fog net. Both the pinning forces due
adjusting in nature. The FCAH would act along the
plane of the fog opposing the motion (or the tendency
of motion) of the droplet; hence its direction could be
on either side (i.e. up or down the fiber) such that it
counters the net magnitude of along-the-mesh-fiber
components of Fdrag and Fgrav (see Figure 22(c) to
(f)). The droplet adhesion force Fa is directed

Figure 21. (a) Dependence of r,dp ðrÞ on rfog based on equation (6). (b) Corresponding mass-based fractional deposition of droplets
having a size distribution described in Figure 20.
20 Proc IMechE Part A: J Power and Energy 0(0)

Figure 22. (a) Forces on a water droplet on the mesh wire for a conventional atmospheric fog capture setup,42 (b) Hemispherical
cap-shaped water droplet on cylindrical wire: (c to f) force interaction on the droplet deposited on the fog net for the P1 and P2
configurations. The directions of the pinning forces FCAH , Fa switch to resist the droplets sliding along the mesh and detachment from
the mesh surface, respectively.

perpendicular to the surface of the mesh, and it
counters the net magnitude of the normal-to-the-
mesh-fiber components of Fdrag and Fgrav .
Depending upon the relative magnitudes of Fdrag
and Fgrav and the angles , , and , Fa prevents
droplet carryover or dripping as the case may be
(see Figure 22(c) to (f)). Hence, unlike the situation
reported in Park et al.,42 the re-entrainment is influ-
enced not only by Fdrag and Fa , but also by the
normal-to-the-mesh component of Fgrav and the
mesh inclination angles. Similarly, the sliding of the
droplet along the mesh wire is not only influenced by
FCAH and the component of Fgrav along the mesh,
but also the in-plane component of Fdrag .
Following Figure 22, forces balancing on the
droplet at the mesh surface both along the plane
and perpendicular to the plane provide three distinct
radii that play key role in the estimation of the drai-
nage efficiency: the re-entrainment radius (re ),
the dripping radius (rdrip ), and the clogging
radius (rc ). For example, Figure 22(c1) shows the
forces for a P1 mesh orientation with 0 5 
5 ð90  Þ and  ¼  þ ; for a situation when
Fdrag sin 5 Fgrav sin, the adhesion force Fa will act
in the direction of Fdrag to fight against dripping of
the droplet. The magnitudes of the three force com-
ponents scale differently with rdrop . The droplet
will not detach from the mesh until the droplet
grows to a critical
 dripping radius rdrip , for which
Fdrag sin þ Fa ¼ Fgrav sin.
From the expressions of the Fdrag , Fa , Fgrav forces in
equations (14), (16), and (17), one obtains a quadratic
Ghosh and Ganguly 21

equation of rdrip for the condition when the droplet is of re-entrainment. For a negative root of re min ,
on the verge of dripping entrainment is observed only when rdrop 5 re max .
 When both the roots are imaginary (e.g. for
1   cases when n2 Sin2 ðÞ 5 4mpSin), the droplet will
air V2o CD ð  SinCosÞ=Sin2  sin  rdrip
2 never be re-entrained. It is also apparent from
þ ½2
LV ð1 þ Cosrec Þ Table 1 that for all configurations (except for the
" (  ) # mesh orientation P2 with 4, see Figure 22(e)),

1  Cos 1  Cos 2 re max 5 rdrip . For the case described in Figure 22(e),
¼ g 3þ sin  r2drip
6 Sin Sin the normal-to-mesh components of gravity and drag
forces act in the same direction, favoring the detach-
ð19Þ
ment. The phenomena of re-entrainment and dripping
are indistinguishable in such case, leading to re ¼ rdrip .
The corresponding expression of rdrip is shown in Therefore, the general trend in Table 3 suggests that
Table 3 (row 1 of Case P1a). For rdrop 4 rdrip , the the re-entrained droplet size cannot exceed that of the
droplet will drip (or detach) from the mesh fibre dripping droplet size.
under the gravity. At the same time, the droplet would not slide down
If on the other hand, Fdrag sin 4 Fgrav sin the
 mesh and  lead to mesh-clogging until
(Figure 22(c2)), the adhesion force Fa will act opposite Fdrag cos þ FCAH 4 Fgrav cos. Mesh clogging hap-
to Fdrag , and will resist the re-entrainment. At a con- pens until the droplet grows large enough—corre-
dition when the droplet is on the verge of re-entrain- sponding to a critical clogging radius rc so that the
ment, the corresponding entrainment radius re would component of gravity exceeds the combined drag and
be such that CAH forces (in equation (21) the LHS value remains
 larger than RHS). For a droplet size equal to rc , the
1 2
 2
 force balance yields and starts rolling along the
air Vo CD ð  SinCosÞ=Sin  sin  re
2 mesh surface.
¼ ½2
LV ð1 þ Cosrec Þ 
" (   ) # 1  2


1  Cos 1  Cos 2 air Vo CD ð  SinCosÞ=Sin  cos  r2c
2

þ g 3þ sin  r2e 2
6 Sin Sin þ ½2LV ðCosrec  Cosadv Þrc
" (   ) #
ð20Þ
1  Cos 1  Cos 2
¼ g 3þ cos  r3c
6 Sin Sin
The corresponding entry of re is shown in Table 3
ð21Þ
(row 2 of Case P1a), which clearly has two values.
When both the roots of re are positive, the droplet
will be on the verge of re-entrainment for the droplet The corresponding limiting conditions for rc which
size range lying between re min and re max . For determines clogging condition is shown in Table 3
re min 5 rdrop 5 re max , the left-hand side of equation (row 3 of Case P1a).
(20) exceeds the right-hand side, indicating the regime