Experimental investigation of the thermal performance of wet cooling tower with splash fills packing

Abstract

With the increasing intensity of the ecological and environmental problems and the scarcity of fresh water, this paper was introduced to investigate the ability to use treated wastewater as a cooling media via studying its behavior throughout a cooling tower. The simultaneous transfer of heat and mass from the treated wastewater to air over splash-fill packing arranged in a zigzag manner was studied. The characteristic of the cooling tower, the outlet water temperature, and the rejected heat were investigated as the water-to-air ratio and inlet water temperature were varied. The core results show that the cooling tower of the tower decreases with increasing water-to-air ratio, and increases with the raise of inlet water temperature. Moreover, relationships between cooling tower and water-to-air ratio were obtained for each. It was also observed that the outlet water temperature increases gradually with increasing water-to-air ratio and temperature, and the difference between the inlet and outlet temperature becomes larger by increasing the inlet temperature. The heat rejected value increases with increasing the air-flow rate, water flow rate, and temperature. This study revealed that cooling tower of splash fills arranged in a zigzag manner was higher compared to other types of packing. In the same time, the results for the treated wastewater and fresh water were very close that gives approximate behavior, and this can save a huge amount of fresh water for other humanistic utilization, along with taking benefit from the treatment process of wastewater instead of through it into the aquatic systems.