International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 135 (2019) 220–234

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

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

Numerical simulation of thermal performance for super large-scale wet

cooling tower equipped with an axial fan
Zhigang Dang, Zhengqing Zhang, Ming Gao ⇑, Suoying He
School of Energy and Power Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, China

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

Article history: For the super large-scale natural draft wet cooling towers (S-NDWCTs), the higher rain zone produces
Received 5 September 2018 water dropping potential energy which can be used to drive an axial fan, meanwhile, the larger diameter
Received in revised form 24 December 2018 deteriorate the whole ventilation performance. Based on these issues, a three dimensional (3D) numerical
Accepted 26 January 2019
model for a S-NDWCT equipped with an axial fan was established to analyze the thermal performance at
different fan diameters and fan power. In order to evaluate the influence of fan, one dimensionless num-
ber m, represents the ratio between the fan diameter and the cooling tower diameter, was introduced in
Keywords:
this paper, as well as air velocity uniformity coefficient wvel and air temperature uniformity coefficient
Super large-scale natural draft wet cooling
towers
wtem . Simulation results manifested that, compared with natural draft pattern, the thermal performance
Numerical simulation and ventilation performance of S-NDWCT with an axial fan improve partly according to these two unifor-
Thermal performance mity coefficient and several thermal performance parameters, and they improve continuously with the
Axial fan increasing of fan diameter and fan power. At the given fan rotate speed (20 rpm), the water temperature
Water dropping potential energy drop DT, ventilation rate G, Merkel number N and cooling efficiency g enhance persistently as the diam-
eter of the fan increases, while these parameters enhance firstly, and then reduce at the given power
(300 kW). Under 15.0 m fan diameter (m = 0.125) and 300 kW fan power conditions, compared with nat-
ural draft pattern, DT, G, N, and g all reach to the maximum of 9.31 °C, 31,549 kg/s, 1.65 and 53.5%, and
enhance by 0.14 °C, 611 kg/s, 0.04 and 0.8%, respectively. It demonstrates that the cooling tower shows
out the outstanding thermal and ventilation performance when the diameter ratio m is 0.125.
Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Cooling towers are used to extract heat from hot water to the
atmosphere [1–4]. The natural draft cooling towers (NDCTs) con-
sist of mainly dry cooling towers (NDDCTs) [5–7] and wet cooling
towers (NDWCTs). Nowadays, the geometric volume of NDWCT
becomes more and more larger since the large-scale generator unit
appears, and it can be called as super large-scale natural draft wet
cooling towers (S-NDWCTs) when the bottom diameter exceeds
100 m. In large-scale thermal power plants or inland nuclear
power stations, S-NDWCTs are widely used to cool the circulating
water from the condenser, and the water temperature can be close
to the air wet-bulb temperature which is much lower than the air
dry-bulb temperature inside the NDWCT [8]. Improving the ther-
mal performance of NDWCTs can decrease the water temperature
entering the condenser, reduce steam turbine back-pressure and
finally improve power generation efficiency.
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: gm@sdu.edu.cn (M. Gao).
In 1904, the first industrial cooling tower appears in the world.
After that, experts from various countries performed many theo-
retical and experimental researches on them. In the aspect of the-
oretical study, Lewis [9] deduced the Lewis relation to calculate the
heat and mass transfer between air and water, which became the
theoretical basis of thermodynamic analysis for the cooling towers,
afterwards, a number of researchers began to investigate the heat
and mass transfer process and thermal performance of cooling
towers. Fisenko [10] presented a mathematical model to evaluate
the cooling performance, including water drop cooling in the
water-spraying zone and film cooling in the fillings zone, and the
results explained that the error between calculated and experi-
mental results was less than 3%. Kloppers and Kröger [11,12] made
a detailed comparison between the Poppe [13], Merkel [14] and e-
NTU [15] methods, and found that the Merkel and e-NTU method
can give the similar results, but both of them are less accurate than
the Poppe method. However, the above three methods which are
used for the theoretical calculation of thermal performance are
one-dimensional. In fact, the airflow is entirely three-
dimensional (3D) [16] and accompanied by complex turbulent vor-
tices, and the airflow and heat transfer process inside the tower are

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2019.01.111
0017-9310/Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 Z. Dang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 135 (2019) 220–234 221

Nomenclature

E water dropping potential energy in rain zone (kW) m ratio between fan diameter and cooling tower diameter
q circulating water mass flow rate (kg/s) that in the fan plane
vrd velocity of raindrops in the z direction (m/s) n fan rotate speed (rpm)
vbot final velocity of raindrops at the bottom of rain zone j the number of data nodes
(m/s) vai air velocity at data node of number i (m/s)
vtop initial velocity of raindrops at the top of rain zone (m/s) va average air velocity (m/s)
Pe fan effective power (kW) tai air temperature at data node of number i (°C)
Qfan volume flow rate of air though the fan (m3/s) ta average air temperature (°C)
Pfan total pressure of the fan (pa) DT water temperature drop (°C)
Sm volumetric mass transfer rate (kg/(m3
s)) G air mass flow rate (kg/s)
cw constant-pressure specific heat of water (J/(kg
°C)) N Merkel number
tw water temperature (°C) t1 inlet water temperature (°C)
Swe volumetric energy transfer rate of water (W) t2 outlet water temperature (°C)
!
va air velocity (m/s) Vfill fillings volume (m3)
I unit tensor of air hsa specific enthalpies of saturated wet air (kJ/kg)
g gravitational acceleration (m/s2) ha specific enthalpies of wet air (kJ/kg)
F volumetric resistance for air (N/m3)
ta air temperature (°C) Greek letters
tref reference temperature (°C) qa wet air density (kg/m3)
kl laminar thermal conductivity coefficient (W/(m
°C)) ll laminar viscosity coefficient (kg/(m
s))
kt turbulent thermal conductivity coefficient (W/(m
°C)) lt turbulent viscosity coefficient (kg/(m
s))
hn
!
specific enthalpy of component n (J/kg) v0sa0 moisture content of saturated moist air (kg/kg)
Jn diffusion flux of component n (kg/m2
s) va moisture content of wet air (kg/kg)
Sae volumetric energy transfer rate of air (W) qda density of dry air (kg/m3)
Yv vapor mass fraction qw water density (kg/m3)
Dl laminar diffusion coefficient of vapor in wet air (m2/s) l air dynamic viscosity (N
s/m2)
Dt turbulent diffusion coefficient of vapor in wet air (m2/s) wvel air velocity uniformity coefficient
Pamb ambient pressure (kPa) wtem air temperature uniformity coefficient
Rda gas constant of dry air (J/(mol
°C)) g cooling efficiency (%)
Rv gas constant of vapor (J/(mol
°C)) s1 wet-bulb temperature of inlet air (°C)
Km volumetric mass transfer coefficient (kg/(m3
s)) a, b, c constant
Kh volumetric heat transfer coefficient (kW/(m3
°C)) u,k coefficient
cv constant-pressure specific heat of vapor (kJ/(kg
°C))
Kmfill volumetric mass transfer coefficient of the fillings Super/Subscripts
(kg/(m3
s)) rd raindrop
qa ventilation density (kg/(m2
s)) bot bottom
qw water-spraying density (kg/(m2
s))
top top
Khfill volumetric heat transfer coefficient of the fillings fan fan
(kW/(m3
°C)) m mass
Lef Lewis factor w water
ca constant-pressure specific heat of wet air (kJ/(kg
°C))
we water energy
Kmsr volumetric mass transfer coefficient in water-spraying a wet air
and rain zone (kg/(m3
s)) ref reference
Khsr volumetric heat transfer coefficient in water-spraying
l laminar
and rain zone (kW/(m3
°C)) t turbulent
Nrd the volumetric number of raindrops n component
Ard surface area of single raindrop (m2) ae air energy
drd equivalent diameter of single raindrop (m)
amb ambient
Red Reynolds number at the raindrop equivalent diameter da dry air
Sc Schmidt number v vapor
Pr Prandtl number sa saturated wet air
vwz water flow velocity in the z direction (m/s)
h heat
fwz water droplet falling resistance caused by airflow (N) mfill volumetric mass transfer coefficient of the fillings
mrd mass of single raindrop (kg) hfill volumetric heat transfer coefficient of the fillings
vax, vay, vaz velocities of wet air in the x, y and z directions (m/s) f factor
Fax, Fay, Faz volumetric air resistance in the x, y and z directions msr volumetric mass transfer coefficient in water-spraying
(N/m3) and rain zone
Dpfill pressure drop of wet air passed through the fillings hsr volumetric heat transfer coefficient in water-spraying
Hfill thickness of the fillings (m)
and rain zone
Rea Reynolds number of wet air rd raindrop
Crd resistance coefficient of raindrops wz water direction
Dfan fan diameter (m) ax, ay, az air direction
Dct cooling tower diameter that in the fan plane (m)
fill fillings
222 Z. Dang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 135 (2019) 220–234

vel velocity 1 inlet

tem temperature 2 outlet
i the serial number of data node

coupled and interactional. As a result, with the development of towers (HWCTs) of a 1000 MW unit to investigate ventilation and
computational fluid dynamics, two-dimensional (2D) and three- thermal performance under crosswind conditions. The test results
dimensional (3D) methods became dominant and widely imple- manifested that crosswind destroys the uniformity of circumferen-
mented. Recently, Ghazani [17] performed the comprehensive tial inflow air, and reduces wind velocity in the lateral and leeward
analysis of a model wet cooling tower by using the laws of thermo- side. Meanwhile, with the rising of crosswind velocity, crosswind
dynamics, and calculated the entropy generation of every part, appears an increasingly serious adverse effect on the thermal per-
these conclusions can help to choose high quality fillings. formance and uniformity of air temperature distribution inside
With the development of research in NDWCTs, many scholars tower. Zhang [34,35] conducted field test on the NDWCT of a
studied the thermal performance of wet cooling towers from many 135 MW unit, and proposed the concept of air inlet deflection
aspects, including model experiment [18–23], numerical simula- angle and air inlet uniformity coefficient. The test results showed
tion [24–31] and field test [32–37]. that crosswind increases ventilation resistance, and destroys the
For the experimental research, Lemouari [18] focused on the uniformity of circumferential air inlet. Širok [36,37] manufactured
hydraulic characteristics of the cooling tower, and studied the a robot which can move over the drift eliminators to measure the
effect of the air and water flowrates at different inlet water tem- velocity and temperature field above the drift eliminators. Based
perature. Pan [19] proposed that the arrangement of water distri- on this study, they also came up with the thermovision method
bution in the pipe and nozzle affected the cooling effect in the which enables quick detection of the local efficiency of cooling
design of cooling tower. Similarly, in the structure optimization towers.
of cooling tower, Gao [20,21] studied the influence of non- In summary, the previous researchers focused mainly on the
uniform fillings distribution on the cooling efficiency by the medium and large-scale NDWCTs to study the heat and mass
thermal-state model experiment, and obtained the optimal fillings transfer performance, and rarely involved super large-scale
pattern. Additionally, Chen [22] performed the model experiment NDWCTs (S-NDWCTs). Moreover, seldom of them discussed the
to investigate the effect of cross walls on the thermal performance water dropping potential energy of the rain zone, and no one per-
under crosswind conditions, and the results showed that cross formed the study of strengthening ventilation by using the axial
walls can improve the thermal performance of the NDWCTs. Wang fan which can be driven by the water dropping potential energy
[23] also conducted thermal-state model experiment, and studied of the rain zone. This study focuses on the thermal and ventilation
the effect of inlet airflow guiding channels on the thermal perfor- performance improvement by utilizing the water dropping poten-
mance under crosswind conditions. This study found that guiding tial energy, and proposes a new method for both the utilization of
channels with 70° setting angle lead to better ventilation and cool- the water dropping potential energy and the thermal performance
ing performance. improvement of S-NDWCTs, which can guide the further energy-
Additionally, as one of the main research methods, the numer- saving research and optimization design of the S-NDWCTs.
ical simulation becomes a popular method for studying the ther-
mal performance of cooling towers. Hawlader [24] and 2. Modeling
Williamson [25,26] developed a 2D axisymmetric model to inves-
tigate the non-uniformity of flow field inside the NDWCTs, and 2.1. Physical model for axial fan driven by water dropping potential
obtained that the two-dimensional model has the ability to resolve energy
radial non-uniformities across the tower which the one-
dimensional model only computes as a bulk averaged value. This paper mainly studies the influence of forced ventilation on
Besides, AL-Waked [27,28] developed a 3D CFD model to simulate the thermal performance of the S-NDWCT, the driving principle of
both the water flow in the fillings and droplets in the water- the axial fan is briefly introduced. The water dropping potential
spraying and rain zones, and analyzed the effect of crosswind on energy is calculated by the theorem of kinetic energy, which is
cooling performance. The simulation results can guide the design given by,
and optimization research in the future. Kalimanek [29] presented
a study on numerical modeling of a natural draft wet-cooling
tower with flue gas injection, and derived that the injected flue
gas has insignificant influence on the cooled water temperature. Table 1
For optimized design of cooling tower performance, Xia [30] pro- Main geometrical dimensions of the S-NDWCT.
posed and numerically investigated a closed wet cooling tower
Subject Value Unit
with novel design, and evaluated the cooling tower performance
Fillings area 13,000.0 m2
under different operating conditions. Chen [31] proposed a novel
Height of the tower 177.2 m
method for improving the cooling performance of natural draft Height of the air inlet 12.0 m
wet cooling towers (NDWCTs) by installing air ducts in the rain Height of fan section inside 30.0 m
zone for the first time, and demonstrated that air ducts improve tower
Thickness of the fillings 2.0 m
both the aerodynamic field and the cooling performance of the
Thickness of fan 1.0 m
NDWCT and that the improvement is quite dependent on the Diameter of fan 5.0, 10.0, 12.5, 15.0, 17.5, 20.0, 22.5, m
crosswind velocity. 25.0, 27.5, 30.0
Finally, field test is also an effective method to conduct the aca- Diameter of fan section 120.0 m
demic research since it can overcome the shortcomings of model inside tower
Diameter of the inlet top 133.4 m
experiment and numerical simulation. Zou [32] and Gao [33] per-
Diameter of the outlet 79.3 m
formed the field test on the high level water collecting wet cooling
 Z. Dang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 135 (2019) 220–234 223

Table 2 through the transmission device, which results in forced ventila-

Operating and environmental conditions. tion in this S-NDWCT.
Item Value Unit For S-NDWCTs, the weak ventilation performance deteriorates
Circulating water mass flow rate 104,540 t/h the heat and mass transfer progress. Therefore, the axial fan is
Crosswind velocity 0 m/s arranged at the center of the cooling tower. In order to simplify
Atmospheric pressure 100.14 kPa the computational model, only the axial fan part of the device is
Dry bulb temperature of inlet air 16.30 °C studied in the simulation. One three-dimensional (3D) geometric
Wet bulb temperature of inlet air 14.15 °C
Inlet water temperature 31.54 °C
model of axial fan is established by SolidWorks as illustrated in
Fig. 2.
In addition, the fan effective power Pe, kW, is introduced to
1 1
 reflect the performance of the axial fan, which can be defined as
E¼ qDv 2rd ¼ q v 2bot  v 2top ð1Þ [38],
2 2

where E is the water dropping potential energy in the rain zone, kW,
q represents the circulating water mass flow rate, kg/s, vrd is the
velocity of raindrops in the z direction, m/s, vbot is the final velocity
of raindrops at the bottom of rain zone, m/s, vtop indicates the initial
velocity of raindrops at the top of rain zone, m/s.
The main geometrical dimensions of the studied S-NDWCT are
listed in Table 1. Moreover, the operating and environmental con-
ditions during the numerical simulation process are shown in
Table 2. Under these conditions, the average velocity of raindrops
in rain zone reaches to around 5 m/s, and the water dropping
potential energy calculated by Eq. (1) is about 400 kW.
In order to utilize water dropping potential energy, a water
dropping potential energy utilization device is designed in this
paper, and its physical model is shown in Fig. 1. As is shown, a
hydraulic impeller is arranged on the top surface of water collect-
ing basin, and an axial fan is placed above the drift eliminators. In
the S-NDWCT, the hydraulic impeller began to rotate due to the
impact by countless raindrops in the rain zone. Afterwards, the
hydraulic impeller and the axial fan can realize coaxial rotation
Q fan
Pfan
Pe ¼ ð2Þ
1000
where Qfan is the volume flow rate of air though the fan, m3/s, Pfan is
the total pressure of the fan, Pa.
2.2. Mathematical model
A complex cooling tower consists of many different zones, such
as drift eliminators, the water-spraying zone, the fillings zone and
the rain zone. The structural complexity leads to the generation of
airflow resistance, so that the air holds a turbulent state inside
tower. Moreover, the air and water flow inside and outside the S-
NDWCT can be regarded as the steady flow under constant mete-
orological and operating conditions. So it can be described by the
steady-state Reynolds average Navier-Stokes equations, and the
Reynolds stress term can be solved by the standard k-e turbulence
model.

Fig. 1. The 3D model of water dropping potential energy utilization device.

224 Z. Dang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 135 (2019) 220–234

Fig. 2. 3D model of axial fan.

  
r
qa !
v a!
v a ¼ rpa þ r
ll þ lt

 
r!
v a þ r!
va  r
!
2
v a I þ qa g þ F
T

ð6Þ
3

where ll and lt are the laminar and turbulent viscosity coefficients,

respectively, kg/(m
s), I is the unit tensor of air, g is the gravitational
acceleration, m/s2, F is the volumetric resistance for air, N/m3.
(III) energy conservation equation

Z ! !
ta X !
r
qa !
va ca dt ¼ r
ðkl þ kt Þrt a  hn J n þ Sae ð7Þ
t ref n

where ta is the air temperature, °C, tref = 0 °C is the reference

temperature, °C, kl and kt are the laminar and turbulent thermal
Fig. 3. Finite control volume for water flow.
conductivity coefficients, respectively, W/(m
°C), hn is the sensible
!
enthalpy corresponding to component n, J/kg, J n is the diffusion
P !
flux of component n, kg/m2
s, n hn J n is the sensible enthalpy
2.2.1. Governing equations for water flow caused by the diffusion of component n, and Sae is the volumetric
In the finite volume shown in Fig. 3, the mass and energy con- energy transfer rate of air, W.
servation equations of circulating water can be written as Eqs. (3) (IV) vapor component mass conservation equation
and (4).

r
qa !
v a Y v ¼ r
½qa ðDl þ Dt ÞrY v  þ Sm ð8Þ
dq
¼ Sm ð3Þ
dðzÞ where Yv is the vapor mass fraction, Dl and Dt are the laminar and
turbulent diffusion coefficients of vapor in wet air, m2/s.
d The airflow around the S-NDWCT can be assumed to be incom-
ðcw tw qÞ ¼ Swe ð4Þ
dðzÞ pressible due to the small variation in air pressure. Therefore, the
change in the air density affects only temperature and humidity.
where Sm is the volumetric mass transfer rate, kg/(m3
s), cw is the
Based on this, the wet air state equation is given as,
constant-pressure specific heat of water, J/(kg
°C), tw represents
the water temperature, °C, Swe is the volumetric energy transfer rate Pamb
q¼ ð9Þ
of water, W. ½Rda ð1  Y v Þ þ Rv Y v ð273:15 þ ta Þ
where Pamb is the ambient pressure, kPa, Rda and Rv are the gas con-
2.2.2. Governing equations for airflow
stant of dry air and vapor, respectively, J/(mol
°C), ta is the air tem-
The airflow state can be described by the mass, momentum,
perature, °C.
energy and component conservation equations [39], which are
listed as below,
2.2.3. Heat and mass transfer model between water and air
(I) mass conservation equation
Based on the literature [26], the volumetric mass transfer rate of


r
qa !
v a ¼ Sm ð5Þ water Sm between the wet air and the cooling water can be defined
as,
!
where qa is the wet air density, kg/m3, v a is the air velocity, m/s.
(II) momentum conservation equation Sm ¼ K m ðv00sa  va Þ ð10Þ
 Z. Dang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 135 (2019) 220–234 225

where Km indicates the volumetric mass transfer coefficient, kl


kg/(m3
s), vsa is the moisture content of saturated moist air, kg/kg,
00
va represents the moisture content of wet air, kg/kg.
The volumetric energy transfer rate of air Sae can be described
as,
Sae ¼ ðK h þ Sm cv Þðt w  t a Þ
where Kh is the volumetric heat transfer coefficient, kW/(m3
°C). cv
is the constant-pressure specific heat of vapor, kJ/(kg
°C). tw and ta
are the water and air temperature, respectively, °C.
Generally, in the fillings zone, Km can be obtained through
experiment, and described as,
K m ¼ K mfill ¼ aqba qcw
where Kmfill is the volumetric mass transfer coefficient of the fill-
ings, kg/(m3
s), qa and qw are represent the ventilation density
and water-spraying density of the tower, respectively, kg/(m2
s),
a, b and c are constant, determined by the material and structure
of the fillings.
Moreover, the volumetric heat transfer coefficient Kh of fillings
can be calculated from the correlation of the Lewis factor Lef cor-
rected by Bosnjakovic, and defined by,
K h ¼ K hfill ¼ ca K m Lef
where Khfill is the volumetric heat transfer coefficient of the fillings,
kW/(m3
°C) and ca means the constant-pressure specific heat of wet
air, kJ/(kg
°C).
In the water-spraying and rain zone, Km and Kh can be written
as follows,
Dl

K m ¼ K msr ¼ qda Nrd Ard 2 þ 0:6Re1=2
d Sc
1=3
drd
K h ¼ K hsr ¼ Nrd Ard 2 þ 0:6Re1=2
d Pr
1=3
ð15Þ
drd
where Kmsr indicates the volumetric mass transfer coefficient in
water-spraying and rain zone, kg/(m3
s) and Khsr represents the vol-
umetric heat transfer coefficient in water-spraying and rain zone,
ð11Þ kW/(m3
°C), qda is the density of dry air, kg/m3, Nrd is the volumetric
number of raindrops, Ard is the surface area of single raindrop, m2,
drd is the equivalent diameter of single raindrop, m, Red is Reynolds
number at the droplet equivalent diameter, Sc and Pr are the Sch-
midt number and Prandtl number, respectively.
2.2.4. Resistance model for water flow
ð12Þ In the fillings zone, the cooling water flows in a film way. And,
the resistance of the airflow to the water film can be given by the
empirical equation [4]. In the water-spraying and rain zone, the
downward flow of circulating water can be taken as nearly vertical
direction with the following equation,
dv wz ðq  qa Þg f wz
¼ w  ð16Þ
dðzÞ qw v wz mrd
v wz
where vwz is the water flow velocity in the z direction, m/s, qw is the
water density, kg/m3, fwz is the water droplet falling resistance
ð13Þ caused by airflow, N, mrd is the mass of single raindrop, kg.
2.2.5. Resistance model for airflow
The airflow resistance from inlet to outlet mainly includes the
water film resistance in fillings zone and the droplets resistance
in water-spraying and rain zone. For convenient calculation, the
fillings resistance which can be expressed as,
ð14Þ Dpfill qa uv kaz
F az ¼ ¼ ð17Þ
Hfill Hfill

Fig. 4. Computation domain and its boundaries for air flow.

226 Z. Dang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 135 (2019) 220–234

Fig. 5. Grid system of cooling tower.

where Faz is the air resistance in the z direction per unit volume,
N/m3, Dpfill is the pressure drop of wet air passed through the fill-
ings, pa, Hfill is the thickness of the fillings, m, vaz is the velocity
of wet air in the z direction, m/s, u and k are the coefficient, which
are determined by experimental data, respectively.
The air resistance in the x, y and z directions of the water-
spraying and rain zone can be expressed in the following forms,
6qw pdw l
F az ¼  C rd Rea ðv az þ v wz Þ ð18Þ
qw pjv wz jd3w 8

6qw pdw l
F ax ¼  C rd Rea v ax ð19Þ
qw pjv 3
wz jdw
8

6qw pdw l
F ay ¼  C rd Rea v ay ð20Þ
Fig. 6. Local grids of fan blade. qw pjv wz jd3w 8

Table 3
Results of mesh independence.

Item Mesh1 Mesh2 Mesh3 Mesh4

Cells of mesh 1,070,488 1,416,872 1,714,895 1,936,740
Inlet water temperature (°C) 31.64 31.64 31.64 31.64
Calculated outlet water temperature (°C) 22.40 21.98 21.97 21.99
Water temperature drop (°C) 9.24 9.66 9.65 9.65
 Z. Dang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 135 (2019) 220–234 227

Table 4 2.3. Numerical model

Comparisons of numerical and measured results.

Parameter Condition Condition Condition 2.3.1. Boundary conditions and solution method
(1) (2) (3) Under no crosswind condition, the pressure at the inlet and out-
Dry bulb temperature of inlet air (°C) 17.86 20.50 32.28 let, temperature and humidity are all set as the ambient air values,
Wet bulb temperature of inlet air (°C) 15.35 15.40 25.78 the computation domain is shown in Fig. 4. Meanwhile, the bound-
Atmospheric pressure (kPa) 100.90 101.30 100.33 aries such as ground and tower body are defined as adiabatic no-
Cooling water flow rate (t/h) 70,444 70,444 91,680
Inlet water temperature (°C) 31.64 31.81 39.33
slip wall condition with no heat and mass transfer.
Measured outlet water temperature 21.25 21.43 31.27 To eliminate the influence of external environment on the flow
(°C) field and heat transfer inside the tower, the computation domain is
Calculated outlet water temperature 21.94 21.95 30.61 considerably larger than the investigated tower, and the height is 3
(°C)
times of the tower height and the radius is about 5 times of the
Relative error (%) 3.25 2.43 2.11
tower base radius. Therefore, the air flow at the computation
domain inflow boundary is not subject to the tower impact and
can be set as the real ambience conditions. The boundary condi-
where Fax and Fay are the air resistance in the x and y directions per tions for discrete phase are listed as: inlet, outlet, the surface of
unit volume, respectively, N/m3, Rea is the Reynolds number of wet water pool and ground are all set to be the escape boundary, which
air, C rd ¼ 24
Re
ffi þ 0:4 is the resistance coefficient of raindrops, l
þ 1þ6pffiffiffi means the water droplets will be deleted from the computation
Re
is the air dynamic viscosity, N
s/m2, vax, vay are the velocity of wet domain once encounter the water basin or the environmental
air in the x and y direction, respectively, m/s. ground. Additionally, the shell of cooling tower is still defined as

Table 5
Values of different m.

Item Value
Dfan (m) 0 5.0 10.0 12.5 15.0 17.5 20.0 22.5 25.0 27.5 30.0
Dct (m) 120.0 120.0 120.0 120.0 120.0 120.0 120.0 120.0 120.0 120.0 120.0
m = Dfan/Dct 0 0.042 0.083 0.104 0.125 0.146 0.167 0.188 0.208 0.229 0.25

(a) m=0 (b) m=0.083

(c) m=0.125 (d) m=0.25

Fig. 7. Air velocity contours of X = 0 cross section at different m values.
228 Z. Dang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 135 (2019) 220–234
(a) m=0
(c) m=0.125
Fig. 8. Air temperature contours of X = 0 cross section at different m values.
reflect boundary to simplify the calculation. And the standard wall
function is adopted for the near-wall treatments of turbulent flow.
In the water-spraying and rain zones, water droplets and wet
air are considered as the discrete phase and continuous phase,
respectively. The DPM model is utilized to simulate the interaction
between discrete phase and continuous phase. The steady simula-
tion is used, and the upper surface of the water-spraying zone is set
as the origin of the droplets. The initial velocity of the droplets is
set to 3.5 m/s, and the equivalent diameter is set to 3.5 mm in
the water-spraying zone. In addition, in the rain zone, the initial
velocity of the droplets is set to 0.4 m/s, and the equivalent diam-
eter is set to 5 mm. Moreover, the axial fan is simulated by using
MRF model in which to achieve the coupling of the flow area and
the fixed area.
By using user-defined functions (UDF), the k and e boundary of
the pressure outlet is set to the second type of boundary condition.
The finite-volume approach is adopted to discrete the governing
equations and the convection term is expressed by second-order
upwind difference. The typical SIMPLE algorithm is adopted to
compute the flow field.
2.3.2. Mesh system
SolidWorks and ICEM-CFD software are used for model estab-
lishment and mesh generation, respectively, in this part. And the
tower body, the fillings zone, the water-spraying zone, the rain
zone and the external environment adopt the structural hexahe-
dral mesh, and the axial fan zone is divided by unstructured mesh.
The grids of heat transfer zones are refined. Both the axial fan and
its surrounding parts are partitioned with the adaptable unstruc-
(b) m=0.083
(d) m=0.250
tured mesh and the blades are mesh-refinement too. Fig. 5 shows
the grid system of cooling tower, and the local grids of fan blade
are shown in Fig. 6.
2.3.3. Mesh independence and validation
To perform the mesh size check, four mesh systems, namely
Mesh1, Mesh2, Mesh3 and Mesh4 are generated in this paper.
Table 3 shows the simulation results of different mesh systems.
To improve the calculation accuracy and reduce the attendant
computational costs, Mesh2 is chosen for the following study
according to Table 3.
The comparison between measured and calculated water tem-
perature under three working conditions is reported in Table 4.
The measured water temperature of three working conditions
can be seen in our group’s thesis [40].
According to Table 4, it can be found that the relative error
between the calculated outlet water temperature and the mea-
sured value is small, and the maximum relative error is 3.25%,
which verifies the accuracy of the numerical model.
3. Results and discussion
In this study, a dimensionless number m represents the ratio
between the fan diameter Dfan and the cooling tower diameter
Dct in the fan plane, m = Dfan/Dct. For different m, the fan rotate
speed n is set to 20 rpm. The values of different m are reported
in Table 5.
 Z. Dang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 135 (2019) 220–234 229

Fig. 9. The location of monitoring surface 1 and 2 in Y = 0 cross section.

Fig. 10. The schematic diagram of data nodes in monitoring surface 1 and 2.

3.1. Air velocity and temperature distributions inside tower at different
m values
Taking the fan diameter as the research object to simulate the
airflow and temperature fields inside the S-NDWCT, the contours
of air velocity and temperature are obtained in this part. Fig. 7
shows the air velocity contours of X = 0 cross section at different
m values, where m = 0 represents the natural draft pattern.
According to Fig. 7 (a), it can be observed that the air velocity
contour inside the tower is axisymmetric under natural draft pat-
tern, and it shows the ‘‘M” type. Due to the effect of the density dif-
ference, the airflow is extracted from the inlet to outlet. Moreover,
the cold air keeps exchanging heat and mass with hot water on its
way from the inlet to outlet, the air density decreases and the air
humidity increases [41]. Along the flow direction, the airflow
velocity increases.
From Fig. 7 (b), (c) and (d), it can be seen that under forced ven-
tilation pattern, the air velocity contour inside the tower is no
longer completely symmetrical. This is because the rotation of
the fan drives up the airflow in the center of the tower. Moreover,
as the fan diameter increases, this trend becomes more obvious,
and the air velocity around the fan reaches to the maximum value.
230 Z. Dang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 135 (2019) 220–234

center, which leads to the higher air temperature in the central

area.
Based on the above analysis, due to the forced ventilation, the
air velocity increases near the axial fan, thus, compared with the
natural draft pattern, the air mass flow rate in the central area
increases under the forced ventilation. Additionally, this phe-
nomenon is more obvious as m increases. According to Fig. 8 (b)–
(d), under forced ventilation pattern, the air temperature around
the center area reduces obviously. The area of low-temperature
zone in the tower increases and the area of high-temperature zone
decreases, so the temperature field is more uniform. The heat and
mass transfer zones inside tower are fully utilized.
In this paper, the air velocity uniformity coefficient wvel and the
air temperature uniformity coefficient wtem are introduced to act as
evaluation criteria to estimate the impact of axial fan on the unifor-
mity of airflow field and temperature field. they can be defined as,

1
wvel ¼ Pj ð21Þ
Fig. 11. Relation curves between wvel and m.
1 þ 1j i¼1 ð ai v  v aÞ

1
wtem ¼ Pj   ð22Þ
1þ 1
j i¼1 tai  t a

where j is the number of data nodes in monitoring surface 1 and 2,

Fig. 12. Relation curves between wtem and m.
At the bottom of the fan, the air velocity also increases. What is
more, the outlet air velocity increases with the increasing of m.
Fig. 7 (d) shows that the area of the low-velocity zone reduces sig-
nificantly and the area of the high-velocity zone increases, corre-
spondingly. Obviously, the axial fan with larger diameter can
significantly improves airflow velocity in the central area of the
tower.
Besides, the air temperature contours of X = 0 cross section at
different m values are also analyzed, and presented in Fig. 8.
Fig. 8 (a) demonstrates that the air temperature inside tower
appears the axisymmetric distribution under natural draft pattern,
which is similar to the air velocity field. For the S-NDWCTs, the rain
zone is large relatively in diameter and height, and the cooled air
goes through a long path from external environment to the tower
respectively, and j equals to 200 in this paper, vai stands for the air
velocity at data node of number i, m/s, and v a represents the aver-
age air velocity, m/s, tai stands for the air temperature at data node
of number i, °C, and t a represents the average air temperature, °C.
Figs. 9 and 10 show the location of monitoring surface 1 and 2, addi-
tionally, the height of monitoring surface 1 and 2 are 25 m and 35
m.
Generally speaking, when these tow coefficients equal to 1, it
means that the air velocity of all data nodes are the same at mon-
itoring surface 1 and 2, and the airflow field is absolutely uniform.
In cooling tower operation, the airflow field and temperature field
inside the tower are not absolutely uniform due to the suction
force, which leads to both wvel and wtem less than 1. Thus, the smal-
ler the w is, the worse the uniformity becomes.
Figs. 11 and 12 depict the changing rules of wvel and wtem for dif-
ferent m under Z1 = 25 m and Z2 = 35 m conditions. It can be seen
that wvel decreases rapidly with the increase of m, while wtem
decreases firstly and then increases. Based on the above analysis,
the air velocity in the central area of the tower increases under
forced ventilation pattern, and this trend becomes more obvious
with the increasing of fan diameter, which causes a non-uniform
air velocity field.
Besides, these phenomena become more obvious at Z2 = 35 m
position, because 35 m position lies in the outlet of fan, and the lar-
ger suction force easily results in the aerodynamic field at this
position.
In brief, although larger diameter fan reduces the velocity uni-
formity, it increases the temperature uniformity obviously, which
contributes to the heat and mass transfer process in the tower. In
addition, as the diameter of the fan increases, these phenomena
become more apparent, which can enhance the suction force of
S-NDWCT to some extent.

Table 6
Relationship between fan power and m.

Item Value
m 0 0.042 0.083 0.104 0.125 0.146 0.167 0.188 0.208 0.229 0.250
Dfan/m 0 5.0 10.0 12.5 15.0 17.5 20.0 22.5 25.0 27.5 30.0
Pe/kW 0 0.04 1.30 4.0 9.9 21.3 41.6 75.0 127.0 204.5 315.9
 Z. Dang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 135 (2019) 220–234 231

Fig. 13. Relation curves between thermal performance parameters and m under constant fan rotate speed condition.

Table 7
Relationship between n and m.

Item Value
Pe/kW 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300
Dfan/m 0 5.0 10.0 12.5 15 17.5 20 22.5 25
m 0 0.042 0.083 0.104 0.125 0.146 0.167 0.188 0.208
n/rpm 0 428 135 93 68 53 43 35 29

3.2. Thermal performance analysis of the S-NDWCT under constant fan and cooling efficiency g, are adopted to evaluate the thermal per-
rotate speed condition formance of the S-NDWCT.
Supposing other operating conditions keep steady, the water
In this part, the numerical simulation of thermal performance temperature drop DT is the most intuitive criteria to evaluate the
for the S-NDWCT with an axial fan is conducted under the constant cooling performance of wet cooling towers, which is given by,
fan rotate speed (20 rpm) condition. Table 6 depicts the relation-
ship between the fan effective power Pe and the diameter ratio m. DT ¼ t 1  t 2 ð23Þ
According to Table 6, the maximum diameter of the fan is set to
where t1 and t2 are the inlet and outlet water temperature, respec-
30 m when the fan rotate speed is 20 rpm, and the corresponding
tively, °C.
fan power is 316 kW by terms of Eq. (2). Additionally, based on
The cooling efficiency g is another evaluation indicator, which is
the analysis of Part. 2.1, the total water dropping potential energy
written by,
of the rain zone for this S-NDWCT is about 400 kW, so it can meet
with the requirement of fan power even if considering partly DT
energy loss. g¼ ð24Þ
t1  s1
In this study, four representative parameters, which are the
water temperature drop DT, ventilation rate G, Merkel number N where s1 is the wet-bulb temperature of inlet air, °C.
232 Z. Dang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 135 (2019) 220–234

Fig. 14. Relation curves between thermal performance parameters and m under constant fan power condition.

In addition, the Merkel number N is another very important
parameter to reflect the thermal performance of wet cooling tow-
ers, it can be defined as,
Z with that of the natural draft pattern. Additionally, G, N and g
t1
K mfill V fill cw
N¼ ¼ dt w
q t2 ðhsa  ha Þ
where Kmfill represents the volumetric mass transfer coefficient of
the fillings, kg/(m3
s), Vfill is the fillings volume, m3, hsa and ha are
the specific enthalpies of saturated wet air and wet air, respectively,
kJ/kg.
The changing rules of, DT G, N and g with diameter ratio m
under constant rotate speed (20 rpm) are shown in Fig. 13.
According to Fig. 13, it can be observed that DT, G, N and g are
quite dependent on the m, and these four parameters simultane-
ously increase with the rising of m. When m rises from 0 to
0.205, the performance parameters increase slowly, which indi-
cates that the diameter has little effect on the thermal performance
when the diameter of the fan is small. Under this condition, the fan
could not significantly increase the air velocity inside the tower
because the diameter is small and fan rotation speed is low. The
thermal performance of the tower is almost the same as that of
the natural draft pattern.
However, when m rises from 0.208 to 0.250 (the fan diameter
increases from 25 m to 30 m), these four performance parameters
show a rapid upward trend, which indicates that the fan results in
positive impact on the thermal performance. When m = 0.250, DT
reaches to a maximum of 9.30 °C, increases by 0.13 °C, compared
increase by 490 kg/s, 0.20 and 1.0%, respectively, compared with
ð25Þ
that of the natural draft pattern.
As a result, the thermal performance of the S-NDWCT notably
improves after using the large diameter axial fan to realize forced
ventilation inside tower. Furthermore, the larger the axial fan
diameter is, the more outstanding the thermal performance
becomes. However, the fan power gradually also increases with
the rising of m, therefore, in order to obtain the optimal m value,
it is extremely necessary to study the thermal performance under
constant fan power condition.
3.3. Thermal performance analysis of the S-NDWCT under constant fan
power condition
In order to obtain the optimal m value, the influence of constant
fan power on thermal performance is studied in this part. Accord-
ing to the above-mentioned analysis and the similarity criteria
[38], the power of the fan is set to 300 kW for different m after con-
sidering the energy loss. Based on this, the relationship between
fan rotate speed and diameter ratio m is shown in Table 7.
 Z. Dang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 135 (2019) 220–234
Fig. 14 describes the changing rules of DT, G, N and g with m
under constant power. It can be found in Fig. 14 that DT, G, N
and g all increase firstly and then decrease with the increasing of
m, and reach to the maximum at 0.125 m (the fan diameter is
15.0 m). Under one certain power condition, the larger the fan
diameter is, the lower its rotation speed becomes. Small-
diameter fan or low- rotation-speed fan cannot optimize the air
flow field in the tower, therefore, the thermal performance reaches
to the optimal status at m = 0.125.
When m = 0.125, the maximum values of DT, G, N, and g are
9.31 °C, 31,549 kg/s, 1.65 and 53.5%, respectively, which are 0.14
°C, 611 kg/s, 0.04 and 0.8% higher than that of the natural draft pat-
tern. Afterwards, with the increasing of m, the downward trends of
four parameters are very rapid due to the reduction of fan
diameter.
Briefly, under 300 kW power condition, when m = 0.125, the
water temperature drop DT, Merkel number N, ventilation rate G,
and cooling efficiency g all reach to the optimum values. Thus,
the conclusion can be drawn that the cooling tower shows out
the outstanding relatively thermal performance when the diame-
ter ratio m is 0.125 (the arrangement with a fan diameter of
15.0 m and a rotate speed of 68 rpm for the studied S-NDWCT).
4. Conclusions
A three dimensional (3D) numerical model for a super large-
scale natural draft wet cooling tower (S-NDWCT) equipped with
an axial fan is established in this paper. Based on this model, the
numerical calculation is conducted to analyze the thermal perfor-
mance at different fan diameters and fan power. By the discussion
of airflow contours, flow fields uniformity and several performance
parameters, the main conclusions are as follows,
(1) After the forced ventilation is realized by the axial fan, the
airflow field and temperature field are affected. When the
fan diameter exceeds 15.0 m, the air velocity in the central
area of the tower significantly increases and the temperature
distribution become more uniform compared with that of
the natural draft pattern, and these phenomena become
more apparent as the diameter of the fan further increases.
Besides, the larger fan diameter enhances the temperature
uniformity coefficient, especially in the upper part inside
tower.
(2) Under forced ventilation pattern, the ventilation rate of the
S-NDWCT improves significantly. Furthermore, when the
fan rotate speed n is set to 20 rpm, the water temperature
drop DT, Merkel number N, ventilation rate G, and cooling
efficiency g all rise as the fan diameter increases. When
diameter ratio m = 0.25, compared with that of the
natural draft pattern, DT, G N and g increase about 0.13 °C,
490 kg/s, 0.20 and 1.0% at most.
(3) When the fan power is set to 300 kW, with the increasing
fan diameter, DT, G, N and g increase firstly and then
decrease rapidly. When m = 0.125, these four parameters
all reach to the maximum values of 9.31 °C, 31,549 kg/s,
1.65 and 53.5%, and enhance by 0.14 °C, 611 kg/s, 0.04,
0.8%, respectively. The results demonstrate that the
S-NDWCT equipped with an axial fan shows out the
outstanding relatively thermal performance when the
diameter ratio m is 0.125 in this research (the arrangement
with a fan diameter of 15.0 m and a rotational speed of
68 rpm for the studied S-NDWCT).
In general, studies in this paper manifest that an axial fan can
improve the thermal performance of the S-NDWCTs to a certain
233
extent. Moreover, the axial fan can be driven by water dropping
potential energy produced by the higher rain zone. Certainly, it is
an innovative idea and new direction for the deep energy-saving
research of S-NDWCTs.
Conflict of interest
The authors declared that there is no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgements
This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation
of China (51776111).
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