Heat Mass Transfer (2013) 49:155–161

DOI 10.1007/s00231-012-1071-1

ORIGINAL

Natural draft dry cooling tower modelling

K. Tanimizu • K. Hooman

Received: 22 November 2011 / Accepted: 3 September 2012 / Published online: 18 September 2012
Ó Springer-Verlag 2012

Abstract Predictions based on a numerical simulation of m Mass flow rate

a natural draft dry cooling tower (NDDCT) has been p Pressure
compared with those obtained theoretically and experi- S The modulus of the mean-rate-of-strain tensor
mentally. Experiments are conducted in a lab-scale Q Internal heat generation rate
NDDCT and are validated with a three-dimensional t Time
numerical simulation of the flow in and around the heat T Temperature
exchangers, which is modelled as a porous medium. Both W Volume-averaged velocity
vertical and horizontal arrangements of the heat exchangers (u,v,w) Velocity components along (x,y,z) axes
are examined. The experimental, numerical and theoretical
Greek symbols
approaches lead to very close prediction for the air velocity
a Thermal diffusivity
and temperature at the exit of the cooling tower. Results of
q Density
this study are expected to be useful for future work on the
k Thermal conductivity
development of air-cooled condensers for geothermal
e Rate of energy dissipation
power plants in Australia.
b Thermal expansion coefficient
h Dimensionless temperature
List of symbols
u Porosity
l Viscosity
Variables
m Kinematic viscosity
A Cross section area
X Dimensionless parameter
CF Form drag coefficient
cp Specific heat Subscripts
d Diameter a Air
D Tower inlet/outlet opening ave Average
g Gravitational acceleration b Bundle/base
H Tower height e Tower exit
k Turbulent energy eff Effective
K Permeability f Fluid
l Finned-tube bundle thickness h Hydraulic
L Bundle height in Inlet
o Outlet
K. Tanimizu  K. Hooman (&) r Room
Queensland Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence, s Solid phase
School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering,
t Turbulent
The University of Queensland, Brisbane,
QLD 4072, Australia T Tube
e-mail: k.hooman@uq.edu.au w Wall

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1 Introduction
Geothermal power plants are the major candidates of next
generation renewable and emission-free power generation
systems in Australia. This technology is not currently at an
advanced stage of commercialization in Australia com-
pared to other renewable counterparts such as, hydro, wind
or solar. However, industry and renewable energy associ-
ations, together with government agencies, started includ-
ing geothermal energy within their calculations of available
generation capacity by targeting an annual renewable
energy generation of 45,000 GW by 2020 [1]. Geothermal
energy systems have the potential to produce a base load
generation capacity capable of replacing existing coal-fired
plants in the foreseeable future. However, there are some
technical challenges to overcome. One of the major tech-
nical difficulties is the design of cooling system used.
Although wet cooling is more efficient than dry cooling,
water shortages and harsh environmental conditions in
areas such as the Australian desert have forced designers to
consider less efficient and more expensive air-cooled sys-
tems, or dry cooling as it is often termed. Air-cooled plants
offer potential economic advantages due to plant sitting
flexibility. Air cooling can be done by using fans
(mechanical driven) or by using natural draft through a
cooling tower. The fan-driven systems can be built quickly
and at a relatively lower cost but their operating costs are
higher due to their higher maintenance requirements and
various parasitic losses associated while running the fans
[2]. The cooling system is a significantly costly item in the
power plant and affects the performance of the entire
power cycle. If the cooling system does not provide ade-
quate cooling, the overall plant efficiency decreases with
serious economic consequences (e.g. decreased electricity
production). It has been reported that approximately
0.3 GW per year of electrical generation in the United
States has been lost because of cooling towers operating
below their design efficiency. This corresponds to an eco-
nomic penalty of around 20 million US dollars per year [3].
It is therefore, very important to design and analyse highly
efficient dry cooling systems for power plants. Hence, in
order to improve the performance of cooling systems,
numerical or theoretical investigations have been reported
by many researchers ([4–11], to name a few) as reviewed
by Kroger [12].
On the other hand, few experimental investigations have
been reported for the fan-assisted NDDCTs (Natural Draft
Dry Cooling Towers), e.g. [10] and [13]. Since the size of a
cooling tower is huge, it is very difficult to conduct on-site
experiments to collect data. In order to conduct research in a
laboratory scale, the Queensland Geothermal Energy Centre
of Excellence (QGECE) tried to develop an efficient cool-
ing system including a new type of heat exchanger as
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Heat Mass Transfer (2013) 49:155–161
described by Odabaee and Hooman [14], with the main goal
of improving the cooling system for a geothermal power
plant. However, what is yet missing in the literature is a
thorough knowledge about the scaling of cooling towers, for
example, one does not know the functional relation between
the height of the cooling tower and the heat that can be
dumped by different heat exchangers. That is, we do not
know how the 2 m height model in our lab relates to a real
prototype which can be around 200 m; see [15]. Hence in
the present work, we try to clarify the effect of the scaling of
a tower using a laboratory scaled model (2 m height) and
later compare with a theoretical and a numerical model.
Further analysis of the flow structure inside the scaled
cooling tower is made based on the numerical model.
2 Theoretical analysis
Initially, a theoretical analysis of the heat exchanger in the
cooling tower is made, assuming it to be a porous media.
This simplistic approach is expected to give rough estimate
of the exit flow velocity to which the cooling tower per-
formance is related.
In a NDDCT the driving force is the air density differ-
ence which follows Boussinesq approximation [16] result
in
Dp ¼ qgHbDT ð1Þ
Porous medium modelling of the heat exchanger leads to
the following pressure drop for flow of air with a volume-
averaged velocity W, across a finned-tube bundle of
thickness l
 
lW CF qW 2
Dp ¼ l þ pffiffiffiffi ð2Þ
K K
As shown by Hooman and Gurgenci [17] both form drag
coefficient and permeability change with internal flow
structure as well as the porosity of the porous medium.
Nonetheless, the average value of the form drag reported
there is O (10-1) while that of the permeability is O (10-5)
for a commercial finned-tube bundle. Hence, the criterion
for a form drag dominant flow through the bundle is
W [ O ð1 cm/sÞ .
The tower frictional pressure drop, for fluid velocity Wf,
is the sum of distributed and local (changes in cross-sec-
tional area, recirculation, and other imperfections) losses
 
4H
Dp ¼ 0:5qWf2 f þj ; ð3Þ
Dh
where j for our lab scale model, as given by Table 1.1 of
Bejan and Lorente [19], puts on higher values than the
other term in the parenthesis. The tower height and
hydraulic diameter are, in most of the practical designs,
Heat Mass Transfer (2013) 49:155–161 157

comparable to each other so that one can simply neglect the

distributed losses. Then, the pressure drop through the
tower scales with local losses
Dp  0:5jqWf2 ð4Þ

The dimensionless total pressure drop should then scale

with
Dp
 Maxð1; XÞ ð5Þ
0:5jqWf2

The two pressure drop terms can be comparable when the

2
dimensionless group X ¼ 2lCpFffiffiuffi  Oð1Þ. For very high/low
j K
values of dimensionless parameter X, the tower/bundle
pressure drop is the dominant one. For the specific problem
of finned-tube bundle which is considered in Hooman and
Gurgenci [17], X  Oð10Þ. Thus the heat exchanger pres-
sure drop becomes the dominant one. However, for the
experiments conducted in a tower without heat exchangers, Fig. 1 Computational domain to simulate the lab scale model
as will be shown in the forthcoming discussion, the pres-
sure drop scales with the tower frictional losses. conducted using a commercially available CFD code
According to the first law of thermodynamics, the heat (ANSYS FLUENT). The computational domain, as
transferred to the fluid flowing through the porous medium depicted by Fig. 1, is a three-dimensional rectangular
increases the enthalpy of the fluid, i.e. Q ¼ qAWcp DT. This enclosure of size 3 m 9 5 m 9 4 m.
can be used to get the volume-averaged velocity as The laboratory scale of a natural draft dry cooling tower
Q system has been simplified to basic case of an isolated
W¼ ð6Þ
qAcp DT NDDCT structure. The atmospheric thermal conditions
surrounding the NDDCT have been presumed uniform with
Equation (6) is general enough to cover all heat exchanger
constant air temperature and pressure. A transient solution
configurations, however for comparison purpose,
is run with a time step of 1 s for a total duration of 30 min
horizontal and vertical bundle arrangements are further
with air being assumed as dry and incompressible. Radia-
examined in this paper. For the case of vertical
tion heat transfer is assumed to be negligible and a semi-
arrangement, the cross-sectional area A in Eq. (6) is
implicit method for pressure-linked equations (SIMPLE)
given by
algorithm is used for the calculation of pressure and con-
A ¼ pDh L; ð7Þ sequently the velocity field, which is needed for the solu-
tion of the energy equation. A total of 900,000 (hybrid
where for a horizontal tube arrangement, to a good unstructured) mesh elements and a first-order upwind dif-
approximation, the area is given by ferentiating scheme are used to approximate the spatial
p derivatives at all interior grid points. The k - e turbulence
A ¼ D2h ; ð8Þ
4 model is used as the fluid Rayleigh number based on the
room height is O (1010). Grid-independence was verified by
where Dh and L are the tower base hydraulic diameter and
control runs on a finer grid that produced consistent results
the heat exchanger height respectively. Equations (5, 6)
(with a maximum error being less than 3 %). Hence, finer
should be combined with Eqs. (7, 8) to give the fluid
grids were not used in reporting the results. It should be
velocity (and thus the mass flow rate) depending on the
noted that the convergence criterion (maximum relative
tower and heat exchanger design.
error in the values of the dependent variables between two
successive iterations) in all runs was set at 10-5.
Adiabatic and no-slip wall boundary conditions were used
3 Numerical analysis to bound fluid and solid regions. For a previous investigation,
Hooman and Gurgenci [17], indicated that the porous med-
In order to understand the flow structure occurring inside ium formalism could be used to model a conventional finned-
the cooling tower, a detailed numerical analysis is tube heat exchanger bundle. Hence, in the present study, the

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158 Heat Mass Transfer (2013) 49:155–161

same porous medium model is used where, the permeability in the porous region where in non-porous region one
K is calculated by using the Carman–Kozney correlation. simply uses u = 1 to recover fluid property.
dT2 u3
K¼ ; ð9Þ
100ð1  uÞ2 4 Experimental analysis
The form drag coefficient used in this study is given by
In order to validate the theoretical and numerical model
CF ¼ 0:55½9:887ð1  uÞðu  0:323Þ  0:8443: ð10Þ
used in the study, a simple experimental rig is constructed
The porous zone (heat exchangers) at the bottom of the to measure the exit flow velocities from a scaled cooling
tower forms either a horizontal layer or a vertical layer tower. Figure 2 shows the small scale cooling tower and
surrounding the tower base with a uniform and constant heating element that was used in this study. The cooling
heat generation rate fixed at 1.0 kW. The initial room tower consisted of the tower shell that was made of poly-
temperature and pressure are set at 300 K and 101,325 Pa, carbonate, the tower support, and the electric heating ele-
respectively. ment. Due to manufacturing difficulties, the cooling tower
The governing equations as used in the calculation are was made into a pyramidal-square shape.
represented below in tensor notation [18] The cooling tower shell was supported by four bars each
having a height of 30 cm. The base area was 2 m2 with the
oui tower exit area being D2o (0.92 m 9 0.92 m). Four copper
¼ 0; ð11Þ heating bars, 10 mm diameter, were arranged horizontally
oxi
in parallel to form the heating element. Static temperature
oðui Þ oðui uj Þ 1 op
þ ¼ measurements were performed as a shortcut to predict the
ot oxj q oxi    velocity which was very hard to measure directly. The
o oui ouj 2
þ ð m þ mt Þ þ  dij k power consumed by the heating element was measured by
oxj oxj oxi 3pffiffiffiffi using ‘‘Nanovip power meter’’. During the experiment, the
m þ m t þ C F j ui j K
þ! g bDT  Fui room temperature was measured using a ‘‘tech’’ ther-
K mometer (NO.CN-306, K-type thermocouples). The sur-
ð12Þ face temperature on the copper tube was measured by a k-
 
ok oðkui Þ o ok pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi type thermocouple and was controlled by an in-house
þ ¼ ðm þ 0:77mt Þ þ mt 2Sij Sij manufactured temperature control box. The room temper-
ot oxi oxj oxj
ð13Þ ature and temperatures at the tower inlet and outlet were
gi oq
 2 e measured using four ‘‘Go! Temp’’ temperature probes (see
q oxi
  Fig. 3) so that the tower exit velocity could be estimated
oe oðeui Þ o oe using Eq. (6). Next section presents the results of the
þ ¼ ð m þ mt Þ
ot oxi oxj  oxj analysis made based on the observations, which includes
1:44mt e pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi v  g oq 
  i uncertainty of measurements [20].
þ 2Sij Sij  tanh  2
k u q oxi
1:92e2

k
ð14Þ
 
oT oðuj TÞ o mt oT
þ ¼ aeff þ
ot oxj oxj 0:9 oxj
Q
þF ; ð15Þ
u qcp f þð1  uÞ qcp s

where F is a binary factor equal to unity in the porous region

and zero elsewhere. Furthermore, S is the modulus of the
mean-rate-of-strain tensor and mt = 0.09 k2/e (in porous
layer: k = 1.5u2 (u2 ? v2)1/2/104 and e = 1.643 k3/2).
Note that the effective thermal diffusivity is given by

ukf þ ð1  uÞks
aeff ¼ ð16Þ
u qcp f þð1  uÞ qcp s
Fig. 2 Experimental setup

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Heat Mass Transfer (2013) 49:155–161
Fig. 3 Thermocouple locations to measure the tower exit tempera-
ture (mid-plane line, of length Do, is shown)
Table 1 Comparison between numerical prediction and experimental
data in horizontal arrangement
Data Scaling Experiment CFD
Mean exit velocity 0.52 0.54 (±0.064 m/s) 0.47
5 Results and discussions
Two different arrangements for heat exchanger bundles are
numerically examined in this study, which is, horizontal
and vertical. However, prior to investigating the effects of
the heat exchanger arrangement, a comparison between
numerical results and theoretical prediction as well as
experimental data can be made for validation purpose. The
experiments using the laboratory scale model were only
conducted in horizontal arrangement. The power of heater
was kept at 1 kW. Tower inlet and outlet temperature were
measured during the experiments. The measured mean
velocity at the tower exit plane was then estimated from
Eq. (6). Table 1 shows the comparison between the mea-
surement data and numerical result of the air velocity at the
tower exit plane. It is observed that while the experimental
data for the tower exit velocity is close to 0.54 m/s
(±0.064 m/s), the result of our theoretical calculation
agrees with the measurement value within 5 % of this
velocity, [16]. At the same time, the numerical prediction
for the mean tower exit velocity is evaluated to be equal to
0.47 m/s. The numerical value is slightly under predicted.
It should be noted that, for experimental evaluation, instead
of Eqs. (7, 8), the following equations were used for the
cross-sectional areas:
A ¼ Din L ð17Þ
for a vertical arrangement and
A ¼ D2in ð18Þ
159
Porosity = 0.66
Porosity = 0.70
0.5 Porosity = 0.74
Vertical
Porosity = 0.78
0.4
Horizontal
0.3
w/(2W)
0.2
0.1
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
x/D o
Fig. 4 Normalized velocity profiles at the tower exit mid-plane; W is
the average velocity in the cross-section
for the horizontal case.
Figure 4 illustrates local normalized (upward) velocity
distribution on the tower exit mid-plane for both vertical
and horizontal heat exchanger arrangements. The heat
exchanger porosity is systematically varied from 0.66 to
0.78 following Hooman and Gurgenci [17]. As can be seen,
increasing the porosity leads to a higher velocity in both
cases. Interestingly, higher velocities are observed in ver-
tical arrangement than in a horizontal arrangement. It is
mainly due to the fact that the driving force, the chimney
effect, is linearly proportional to the effective height, which
is higher for a vertical heat exchanger. The effective height
for a vertical bundle is measured from the tower opening
(half way through) to the tower exit. For the vertical case
the effective height is estimated to be 2.15 m whereas for
the horizontal case its value is 2 m. This indicates that, to
the first approximation, one can expect the average velocity
for the vertical case to be almost 8 % higher compared to
that of horizontal case. This also indicates that, in the
absence of atmospheric disturbances, the amount of heat
rejected by a particular tower where the heat exchangers
are arranged vertically around the tower inlet shows better
cooling performance than that ejected by the same tower
with the heat exchangers arranged horizontally in the inlet
cross-section.
Figure 5 indicates the dimensionless temperature profile
on the same mid-plane as that of Fig. 2 for the aforemen-
tioned range of porosity. The dimensionless temperature is
defined as h = (T - Twall)/(Twall - Tini) with Twall and Tini
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160 Heat Mass Transfer (2013) 49:155–161

Porosity = 0.66
Porosity = 0.70
0.045 Porosity = 0.74
Porosity = 0.78

0.035
Horizontal
Vertical

0.025
θ

0.015

0.005

0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5

x/D o

Fig. 5 Dimensionless temperature profiles at the tower exit for both

vertical and horizontal case

being the wall temperature (at the tower exist) and initial
room temperature, respectively. The temperature distribu-
tion is observed to be flatter for the horizontal case, similar
to the velocity distribution.
As a sample of our results, Figs. 6 and 7 are presented to
indicate the velocity vector plots (coloured by velocity
magnitude) and dimensionless isotherms for both hori-
zontal and vertical bundle arrangements with u = 0.66 on
x = 0 plane. As can be observed, the flow patterns near and
inside the cooling tower are different due to the arrange-
ments of the bundles. Flow separation occurs at the lower
Fig. 6 Velocity vector plots on x = 0 mid-plane for a horizontal and
edge of the tower wall (at the corner of inlet). The sepa- b vertical bundle arrangement (u = 0.66)
ration formed a vena contracta with a corresponding dis-
torted inlet velocity distribution. After the flow passes the
heat exchanger bundles, two recirculation zones are formed Figure 7a, b illustrate the dimensionless temperature
on either side of the tower, where the air velocity is much distributions for the same porosity and bundle arrange-
lower when compared to the regions close to the tower ments as those of Fig. 6, again on x = 0 mid-plane. Note
centre. With the vertical bundles, the flow tends to be more that the average wall temperature at the tower exit is used
or less uniform after exiting the heat exchangers. Another as reference temperature. Hence, the negative values for h
interesting observation is that, the maximum velocity is can be explained as regions where the air temperature is
higher with the vertical case and the velocity distribution at less than that of the wall at the tower exit. In horizontal
the tower entrance is different as one would expect case, the distribution of temperature is almost uniform
(because of different flow resistances; with vertical bundles except near bottom corner of the tower. The two near-wall
the air faces heat exchanger resistance at the tower inlet recirculation regions for the horizontal case result in high
whereas with the other case, this flow resistance occurs temperature regions inside the tower, which is more or less,
further downstream in the tower). In both cases, vertical symmetric to each other. These hot spots however could
and horizontal heat exchangers, the air is heated and have been avoided by a better design for the cooling tower.
pushed up towards the adiabatic horizontal wall. As the This fact brings home the point that tower design is not
walls are adiabatic, the heat transferred to air by the heat only dictated by external effects, say wind, but also by
sources (bundles), keeps on increasing the air temperature minimizing the inside pressure drops and eliminating the
until thermal equilibrium is reached. circulations inside the tower. In a vertical case, temperature

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Heat Mass Transfer (2013) 49:155–161
Fig. 7 Dimensionless temperature distributions for a horizontal and
b vertical bundle arrangement
field is also symmetric with no hot spots observed inside
the tower, and the temperature gradually decreases with
height.
6 Conclusions
Three-dimensional numerical simulation of the perfor-
mance of a small scale NDDCT is presented and compared
with both experimental and theoretical data. Simulation
results indicate that the porous medium modelling is suit-
able in predicting the flow in and around the heat
exchanger bundle. In addition, the k - e turbulence model
is found to be a reliable model to predict the complex
nature of the flow in and around a cooling tower despite the
fact that the model is believed to deviate from experimental
results for low fluid velocities. The method presented in
this paper makes it possible to conduct further research on
the design and performance of NDDCTs without the need
of complex engineering details or iterative solution to the
draft equation. Future research at QGECE will aim at
161
examining different heat exchangers in the cooling tower
and study the effects of cross-wind on the heat and fluid
flow from the air-cooled heat exchangers.
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