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Procedia136 (2017) 000–000
00 (2017) 169–175
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

4th International Conference on Energy and Environment Research, ICEER 2017, 17-20 July
2017, Porto, Portugal

Effects of The
pressure loss coefficients
15th International Symposium onof heatHeating
District exchanger on thermal
and Cooling
performance of the dry cooling tower
Assessing the feasibility of using the heat demand-outdoor
temperature function for a long-term
Huan Maa, Fengqi district
Sia,*, Xuebo Li b
heat
, Junshan demand
Wang b
forecast
a
Key Laboratory of Energy Thermal Conversion and Control of Ministry of Education, School of Energy and Environment, Southeast University,
a,b,c a a b c c
I. Andrić *, A. Pina , P. Ferrão , J. Fournier ., B. Lacarrière , O. Le Corre
Nanjing 210096, PR China
b
CPI Shentou Power Generation Co., Ltd., Shuozhou 036800, PR China
a
IN+ Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research - Instituto Superior Técnico, Av. Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal
b
Veolia Recherche & Innovation, 291 Avenue Dreyfous Daniel, 78520 Limay, France
c
Département Systèmes Énergétiques et Environnement - IMT Atlantique, 4 rue Alfred Kastler, 44300 Nantes, France
Abstract

Crosswind deteriorates thermal performance of the natural draft dry cooling tower (NDDCT) mainly due to the unfavorable
Abstract
pressure distribution at tower entrance. Thus, effects of air cooled heat exchanger with various pressure loss coefficients are
investigated with numerical simulation. The vortex inside the tower would cut down air inflow of heat exchanger of sideward and
leeward
Districtparts.
heatingA quite large are
networks exponent of pressure
commonly loss coefficient
addressed expression
in the literature as oneof of
heattheexchanger contributes
most effective to reduce
solutions heat transfer
for decreasing the
unevenness
greenhouseamong cooling deltas,
gas emissions from theandbuilding
would generate a small
sector. These enhancement
systems require for
hightheinvestments
overall thermal performance
which are returnedofthrough
the tower.
the heat
sales. Due to the changed climate conditions and building renovation policies, heat demand in the future could decrease,
©prolonging
2017 The Authors. Published
the investment byperiod.
return Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review underofresponsibility
The main scope this paper is of
to the scientific
assess committee
the feasibility of thethe
of using 4thheat
International
demand –Conference on Energyfunction
outdoor temperature and Environment
for heat demand
Research.
forecast. The district of Alvalade, located in Lisbon (Portugal), was used as a case study. The district is consisted of 665
buildings that vary in both construction period and typology. Three weather scenarios (low, medium, high) and three district
Keywords:
renovationCrosswind;
scenarios drywere
cooling tower; numerical
developed simulation;
(shallow, pressuredeep).
intermediate, loss coefficient;
To estimatethermal
theperformance
error, obtained heat demand values were
compared with results from a dynamic heat demand model, previously developed and validated by the authors.
The results showed that when only weather change is considered, the margin of error could be acceptable for some applications
1.(the
Introduction
error in annual demand was lower than 20% for all weather scenarios considered). However, after introducing renovation
scenarios, the error value increased up to 59.5% (depending on the weather and renovation scenarios combination considered).
The value to
Owing of the
slope coefficient increased
energy-efficient on average within
and water-saving the range
advantages, of 3.8%
natural up dry
draft to 8% per decade,
cooling tower that corresponds
(NDDCT) to the
has been
decrease
widely in the in
applied number of heating
the regions hours
with richofcoal
22-139h during
and lack of the heating
water season
[1,2]. With(depending on theair
the delta-form combination
cooled heat of weather
exchangerand
renovation
bundles, thescenarios considered).
tower rejects On the
the waste heatother hand, function
of circulating waterintercept increased
to ambient for 7.8-12.7%
atmosphere. As a per decade
result, (dependingof
performance onthe
the
coupled scenarios). The values suggested could be used to modify the function parameters for the scenarios considered, and
NDDCT is highly sensitive to the environment conditions, particularly the crosswind.
improve the accuracy of heat demand estimations.

© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of The 15th International Symposium on District Heating and
Cooling.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 25 83790579.
E-mail address: fqsi@seu.edu.cn
Keywords: Heat demand; Forecast; Climate change
1876-6102 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 4th International Conference on Energy and Environment
Research.
1876-6102 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of The 15th International Symposium on District Heating and Cooling.
1876-6102 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 4th International Conference on Energy and Environment
Research.
10.1016/j.egypro.2017.10.315
170 Huan
Huan Ma Ma/ et
et al. al. / Energy
Energy Procedia
Procedia 136000–000
00 (2017) (2017) 169–175

Nomenclature

h convective heat transfer coefficient of heat exchanger (W m-2 K-1)

k turbulence kinetic energy(m2 s-2)
kl non-dimensional pressure loss coefficient
Q heat rejection (W)
S source term
t temperature (K)
v velocity of air (m s-1)
Greek symbols
 density (kg m-3)
 turbulent dissipation rate (m2 s-3)
th dimensionless parameter describing heat rejection variation of the tower caused by crosswind
Γ diffusion coefficient (kg m-1 s-1)
 scalar variable for airflow
 dimensionless parameter describing maximal heat transfer difference among cooling deltas
Δ the drop of a variable
Subscripts
cw crosswind
D cooling delta
n normal direction
w circulating cooling water
2 outlet

As a key issue, crosswind has been thoroughly investigated involving its unfavorable impacts on thermal
performance of the tower. Using wind tunnel modeling, Wei et al. [3] explained the main reasons of thermal
performance deterioration caused by crosswind, that is, an unfavorable pressure distribution at the tower entrance,
breaking of the plume rising at the tower exit, and cool air induced by leading edge separation entering the tower. By
numerical simulation, Su et al. [4] revealed that the unfavorable pressure distribution, the internal secondary flow
induced by the shock of inflows, and the influence of wind-cover played by crosswind on the top of the tower would
reduce cooling efficiency of the tower. Ma et al. [5] indicated that the nonuniform variation of flow intensity around
the heat exchanger causes the nonlinear variation of cooling water temperature with crosswind speed, with numerical
simulation coupling the tower and condenser. Yang et al. [6] indicated that thermal performances of upwind cooling
deltas are superior to others under crosswind, and for side cooling deltas, flow rates of cooling air decrease rapidly as
the wind speed increases, but at high wind speeds, the flow rates remain almost constant. Zhao et al. [7] found
crosswind deflects the inflow air from the inverse radial direction at delta entry especially in tower lateral. Under
crosswind, heat transfer performances of cooling deltas at all sides of tower base determine the overall thermal
performance of the tower. Therefore, as a key equipment, the characteristic of air cooled heat exchanger directly
influences the economic and safe operation of the whole system.
Fin-and-tube heat exchangers are mostly applied in the dry cooling towers, with the advantages of compact
structure, strong heat transfer capability, high material utilization ratio and less scaling. Generally, in-tube
convective heat transfer coefficient is much larger than the air-side one, and pressure loss and heat transfer
coefficients are two important performance parameters evaluating the characteristics of heat exchangers. Geometry
size of the fin [8, 9] has great impacts on the performance of air-side heat transfer, and fin pitch, number of tube row
and tube alignment [10,11] are other significant factors. However, the influences on heat transfer caused by these
factors are closely related to Reynolds number [12], the type and material of the fin [13, 14]. So far, air cooled heat
exchangers mostly adopt aluminous and steel finned tubes, and the shape and structure parameters of these air
cooled finned tubes are similar. As a consequence, the expressions of performance parameters of air cooled heat
exchangers are similar as well, written as Eqs. (1) and (2), or Eqs. (3) and (4).
 HuanHuan
Ma etMa
al./etEnergy
al. / Energy Procedia
Procedia 136 (2017)
00 (2017) 169–175
000–000 171

h  avnb (1)

kl cvn d  k0
 (2)

G
h   eg vn g 1 (3)
g 1

J
kl   f j vn j 1 (4)
j 1

where k0 is the constant, a and c are the coefficients of power functions, while b and d are the exponents. e and f are
the coefficients of polynomials, while g and j are the orders of the items, and G and J are the numbers of the terms.
As the unfavorable pressure distribution at tower entrance is an important cause for thermal performance
deterioration of the NDDCT under crosswind, the effects of air cooled heat exchanger with different pressure loss
coefficients on thermal performance of the tower were investigated by numerical simulation. Full structure of the air
cooled heat exchanger consisting of cooling deltas were taken into account, and thermal performance decay rate of
the tower with wind speed and performance gap between cooling deltas of best and worst performances were
investigated.

2. Numerical simulation

In the NDDCT, heat drives air flows, and airflows impact heat transfer in turn. Air can be treated as an
incompressible ideal gas, and air density changes with ambient temperature according to state equation of ideal gas
[7]. As what researched in this work is under steady conditions, air and heat flows in and around the tower can be
dealt with the steady state Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes equations, as follows:

    v   
 S  S' (5)

Owing to the excellent performance solving flow separation, the realizable k- model [6] is employed. S is the
internal source term of air governing equation, and S’ is user defined source term only inserted to the momentum
and energy equations of computational cells in the cooling columns, describing momentum loss and heat absorption
of inflow air when flowing through heat exchanger.

tower body

ing
arg
enl

cooling deltas
anger
heat exch
-type
delta

Fig. 1. The structure of the NDDCT.

172 Huan Ma et al. / Energy Procedia 136 (2017) 169–175
Huan Ma et al. / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

The studied NDDCT has a total height of 173 m, a base diameter of 155 m, a throat diameter of 88m, an out
diameter of 91m and a heat exchanger height of 28 m. As the structure of the tower is symmetrical along wind
direction, only a half computational domain is modeled to reduce the simulation work. In Fig.1, the delta-type heat
exchanger is arranged vertically around the circumference of tower base, and divided into three parts, as shown in
Fig. 2(a). In windy conditions, crosswind velocity profile at the windward surface obeys the power law [15]. In the
absence of crosswind, the windward surface takes boundary type of pressure inlet, as shown in Fig. 2(b). Boundary
type of pressure outlet is adopted for other far field boundaries, and the ground and tower body are set as adiabatic
and no slip wall boundary, with standard wall function applied for near-wall treatment of turbulent flow. To achieve
high quality girds, the computational domain is meshed using multi-block hybrid approach, as seen in Fig. 2(c).
Then, three grid systems with mesh cells of 4736468, 5856218 and 7233090 were generated, and tested at crosswind
speed of 4 m/s and ambient temperature of 14.5 °C respectively. The test result showed that heat rejection of the
whole tower varies less than 0.32% between the two highest grid density solutions, so grid number of 5856218 was
finally accepted.

a) b) c)
cooling detal

crosswind sideward part

q (60-120°)
0-6 part

lee
q(
wa 180°
0°)
ard

120
rd
dw

par
-
q(
win

t
)

Fig. 2. (a) Cooling delta distribution; (b) The half computational domain with boundary conditions specified; (c) Grid configuration.

The governing equations are discretized by the first-order upwind differencing scheme, and the SIMPLE
algorithm is employed in pressure-velocity coupling. Before the simulation, a constant inlet water temperature and
an assumed outlet water temperature are specified for each cooling delta, and after each iteration, outlet water
temperature of the column is recalculated and updated for next iteration.

3. Results and discussion

Performance parameters of air cooled heat exchanger expressed as Eqs. (1) and (2) are applied in this paper, and
use the values offered by the literature [15].

a) 1.2 b)
(tw2,D-tw2,Dmin)/(tw2,Dmax-tw2,Dmin)

Su et al. [4] 12
Zhao et al. [7]
This paper 10
0.8
Δtw (°C)

6 windward part
0.4 decreasing
sideward part sharply
4 leeward part
overall
0 2
0 40 80 120 160 0 2 4 6 8 10 12
q (°) vcw (m/s)

Fig. 3. (a) Comparison of dimensionless outlet water temperatures of cooling deltas, (b) Temperature drop of circulating water under crosswind.

Fig. 3(a) shows the dimensionless outlet water temperature variation of cooling delta along circumferential angle
at crosswind speed of 5m/s. The three curves show a similar trend, and the little deviation among the three variation
curves is acceptable due to the different methods applied to model the NDDCT. Then, numerical simulation for the
 Huan Ma et al. / Energy Procedia 136 (2017) 169–175 173
Huan Ma et al./ Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

NDDCT are conducted under various crosswind speeds. Thermal performance of heat exchanger of windward part
improves with the increase of crosswind speed, while sideward and leeward parts experience the opposite changes,
as shown in Fig. 3(b). At low crosswind speeds, heat transfer of sideward or leeward part deteriorates unobviously.
While at middle-high crosswind speeds, thermal performance of sideward part deteriorates sharply. The main reason
is that the vortex generated by the shock of all-side inflows moves toward to tower flank where heat transfer is weak
and air inflow is less, seen in Fig. 4(a), then the vortex would further reduce flow rate of air flowing into sideward
part of heat exchanger. With the further increase of crosswind speed, air inflow or heat transfer of windward part is
much superior to others, and a great vortex appears inside the tower, as shown in Fig. 4(b). The great vortex restricts
air flowing in through the leeward part, so heat transfer of leeward part deteriorates sharply.

a) tempture (°C) b) tempture (°C)

y (m)

y (m)

x (m) x (m)

Fig. 4. Temperature fields and streamlines at the horizontal cross section of half heat exchanger height at crosswind speed of, (a) 8 m/s; (b) 12 m/s.

a) b) 11.5
60
11.4
50 kl =22.25vn-0.24
Δtw, cw=0 (°C)

40 kl =24.79vn-0.37 11.3
kl

-0.50
30
kl =27.63vn 11.2

20 11.1

10 11.0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 -0.50 -0.37 -0.24
vn The exponent in Eq. (2)

Fig. 5. (a) Three computational formulas of pressure loss coefficient; (b) Temperature drop of circulating water at no crosswind.

Thermal performance variations of the NDDCT are researched under another two computational formulas of
pressure loss coefficient, as shown in Fig. 5(a). With the increase of the exponent of Eq. (2), thermal performance of
the tower at no crosswind gets a very slight improvement, seen in Fig. 5(b).
To demonstrate the effect of crosswind on thermal performance of the tower, a dimensionless parameter is
introduced as the ratio of the amount of ejected heat at crosswind to the maximum amount of ejected heat occurs at
no crosswind:

Qcw
 th  (6)
Qcw0

Meanwhile, another dimensionless parameter is introduced to describe largest heat transfer difference among
these cooling deltas around tower base:

tw,D max  tw,D min

 (7)
tw,Davg

where superscript avg, max and min refer to the average, maximum and minimum values of the variable.
174 Huan Ma et al. / Energy Procedia 136 (2017) 169–175
Huan Ma et al. / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

Table 1 shows the two dimensionless parameters under crosswind, th decreases mostly slowly at a largest
exponent of Eq. (2), and the corresponding  is smallest at any crosswind speed. That is the exponent of pressure
loss coefficient expression should be as large as possible for the heat exchanger of the NDDCT, while the advantage
is not so obvious. This can be tell by Fig. 5(a), the large exponent generates a small pressure loss coefficient at a low
inflow air normal velocity, which is benefit for the sideward and leeward parts of the air cooled heat exchanger.
However, the large pressure loss coefficient at a high inflow air normal velocity generated by the large exponent
would weaken heat transfer of the windward part. Therefore, the overall result is that the quite large exponent of
pressure loss coefficient expression would cause a small improvement for thermal performance of the tower.

Table 1. Results of the two dimensionless parameters under different computational formulas of pressure loss coefficient.

kl =22.25vn-0.24 kl =24.79vn-0.37 kl =27.63vn-0.50

0 m/s 4 m/s 8 m/s 12 m/s 0 m/s 4 m/s 8 m/s 12 m/s 0 m/s 4 m/s 8 m/s 12 m/s
th 1.00 0.94 0.74 0.60 1.00 0.93 0.73 0.58 1.00 0.94 0.73 0.59
 0.00 0.24 1.41 2.00 0.00 0.25 1.44 2.20 0.00 0.25 1.45 2.12

4. Conclusion

To investigate the effects of air cooled heat exchanger with different pressure loss coefficients on thermal
performance of the NDDCT, numerical model of the tower is established considering full structure of the heat
exchanger. Under crosswind, the vortex inside the tower would cut down air inflow of heat exchanger of sideward
part, and then restrict air flowing in through the leeward part with the further increase of wind speed. A quite large
exponent of pressure loss coefficient expression of the exchanger would reduce heat transfer unevenness among
cooling deltas, and generate a small improvement for the overall thermal performance of the tower. Results obtained
in this paper are helpful for the selection of heat exchanger applied in the NDDCT.

Acknowledgements

The financial support for this research, from China Power International Development Limited (Grant No. ZDST-
JH-20160617) and the Scientific Research Foundation of Graduate School of Southeast University (Grant No.
YBPY1701) is gratefully acknowledged.

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