Study of Heat Rejection in Triple Natural Draft Dry Cooling Towers under Crosswind Using Radiator-Type Windbreakers

Abstract

In this paper, the effect of crosswind on triple natural draft dry cooling towers is studied and analyzed. Concerning this area, many researches have concentrated on one cooling tower. This research focuses on the mutual effects of the adjacent towers' performance, and also makes a comparison between the efficiency of the three cooling towers in windy and no-wind conditions, using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). In modeling the crosswind condition, at first solid windbreakers, and then radiator-type windbreakers are used for each cooling tower. Finally, the water outlet temperatures of the radiators' cooling towers are analyzed, and the total heat rejections at different conditions are compared. Numerical results show that radiator-type windbreakers can substantially improve cooling efficiency more than usual solid-types. It should be mentioned that a complete grid study is done to achieve a grid-independent solution.