CFD Simulation of Natural Draught Cooling Tower Wind-Covering

Abstract

Past experiences have shown that a local wind can considerably affect the performances of powerplant cooling towers and factory chimneys. In thermal powerplants, the performance of Rankin cycles would reduce if the temperature of its condenser increases. This issue is very important to powerplants located in countries with strong local winds. To remedy the mal-performance of a natural cooling tower in windy conditions, it is required to understand the physics of flow around cooling towers more clearly. One adverse physics is known as the wind covering problem which can drastically affect the natural draught through a cooling tower in windy conditions. In this paper, we focus on wind-covering problem and its adverse impact on a real natural draught cooling tower. Contrary to the past studies, we show that wind can generally affect either positively or negatively in cooling tower performances. Surprisingly, the positive and negative roles can simultaneously occur in most times. In this paper, we use computational fluid dynamics tool to quantify the positive and negative impacts of wind on natural draught flow through dry cooling towers.