Submitted by- Nachiket Lohkare (A-46, 19030006)

The thermal efficiency improvement of a steam Rankine cycle by

innovative design of a hybrid cooling tower and a solar chimney
concept
This paper has broadly discussed about a hybrid method of combining dry cooling tower and
a solar chimney and are recombined in order to increase the thermal efficiency of steam
Rankine cycle. A solar chimney consists of three essential components: solar collector,
chimney, and wind turbine. Air enters the system from its open periphery and is heated up by
the solar radiation that is passed through the transparent roof and trapped due to the greenhouse
effect. Talking about the cooling towers they are an internal part of many powers’ generation
plants, in which they use ambient air to cool warm water which leaves the condenser. Dry
cooling towers have recently been widely used in regions with limited access to vast water
resources. Further a case study and data of steam power plant of Iran is considered and its
cooling tower is redesigned with the concept of solar chimney so as to achieve more generation
of electricity by capturing the rejected heat and in this hybrid system the collector surface is
reduced and the extra necessary heat for power generation is gained from radiators of the
cooling tower. The principal phenomenon behind the working of hybrid system is as follows:
• The ambient cool air enters the system from the open base and is passed through
radiators and cools the condenser water coming in its path.
• This heated air then passes through a space under transparent roof and gains more heat
from solar radiation which is trapped in the region because of greenhouse effect.
• The transparent roof and the ground below it acts as a collector and heat up the flowing
air more. The density of the air decreases as its temperature elevates in this region and
causes a stronger natural circulation because of the density difference with the
surroundings ambient.
• The buoyant air flows radially towards the centre of the system where some inlet guide
vanes (IGVs) direct it through a wind turbine, which is installed at the throat of the
chimney. The air drives the turbine in its path and generates electrical power similar to
that in solar chimneys.
Further a CFD modelling was also carried out to compare experimental and theoretical concept.
it can be observed that the amount of power output soars significantly due to higher air
velocities caused by increase in solar radiation. The same behaviour can be seen for power
generation against ambient temperature. This fact is completely reasonable since the air flow
becomes more buoyant in higher temperatures, resulting in a faster air circulation. In almost all
cases, each 5 ℃ increase in ambient temperature engenders 20 kW more output power from
the turbine. Further for chimney diameters it was observed that as the chimney diameters are
increased considerable electric power generated are also increased (considering 500m length)
and not only this change in chimney diameters is directly proportional to efficiency
improvement. As it is given for chimney diameter of 50m there is increase by 0.4% in
efficiency and the overall thermal power plant efficiency is reached to 30.4%. Also, amount of
generated CO2 is reduced for long term. So, by all this result and discussion it is correct to say
that combination of dry cooling tower and solar chimney enhances the Rankine cycle efficiency
of thermal power plant and is also suitable for dry regions having lack of reliable of water
resources along with ten times increase in output power compared to experimental results.