Energy Conversion and Management 91 (2015) 238–248

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Energy Conversion and Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman

Experimental study of crosswind effects on the performance of small

cylindrical natural draft dry cooling towers
Yuanshen Lu ⇑, Zhiqiang Guan, Hal Gurgenci, Kamel Hooman, Suoying He, Desikan Bharathan
Queensland Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence, Qld 4072, Australia
School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering, The University of Queensland, Qld 4072, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Crosswind effect is a common issue which limits the cooling efficiency of natural draft dry cooling towers
Received 27 August 2014 (NDDCTs) of all sizes. On short NDDCTs with total heights less than 30 m, this effect might be much more
Accepted 6 December 2014 significant. Following the authors’ previous numerical investigation on crosswind effects in a 15 m-tall
Available online 24 December 2014
cylindrical NDDCT, an experimental study was carried out and is presented in this paper. The study used
a 1:12.5 scaled cooling tower model equipped with an electric resistance heater simulating horizontally
Keywords: placed heat exchangers. The air velocity, temperature, and the heat input on the model were measured at
Natural draft dry cooling towers
different crosswind speeds in a wind tunnel. Comparisons against CFD models show good agreement
Crosswind effect
Scaled cooling tower model
between the experimental and numerical results when the similarity conditions between the CFD model
Wind tunnel testing and the experimental model are fully satisfied. Based on these results, the total heat transfer rate of
Natural convection heat transfer NDDCTs was proposed to be a combination of a natural convective heat transfer term and a forced con-
vective one. In small cooling towers, the natural convection term is comparable with the forced convec-
tion term. This explains why the correlation of the total heat transfer with the wind speed has a
turnabout point below which the heat transfer decreases with increasing crosswind speed and above
which it does the reverse. The turnabout point occurs when the sum of natural and forced convection
terms is the minimum.
Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction high-temperature fossil-fired plants, these renewable plants need

The cooling tower performance is crucial to the power conver-
sion efficiency of power plants. It is reported that about 0.3 GW h
of total net power generation loss each year in the United States
can be attributed to cooling tower systems operating at efficiencies
below their design values [1]. Natural draft dry cooling towers
(NDDCTs) are used in areas where water is scarce [2]. In contrast
to fan-cooled condensers, natural draft towers are designed to
work like chimneys relying on the buoyancy of hot air. Traditional
large scale fossil fired power plants usually require NDDCTs taller
than 100 m to produce enough airflow. Renewable thermal power
generators, e.g. geothermal and solar thermal, operate using the
same principles as fossil-fired thermal plants. Leaving the
high-concentration solar thermal generators aside as a notable
exception, these renewable plants usually operate at relatively
low temperatures. The power generation efficiencies are
necessarily lower at lower temperatures. Therefore, compared to
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 7 336 542 48.
E-mail address: y.lu7@uq.edu.au (Y. Lu).
to dump more waste heat for every unit of power they generate.
This makes the cooling efficiency of their NDDCTs more important.
The Queensland Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence (QGECE)
is developing small-size geothermal and solar thermal power
plants for Australia. These plants have net generation capacities
of only a few megawatts and are more likely located in arid areas
of Australian interior. Therefore small-size NDDCTs equipped with
horizontal air-cooled surface heat exchangers are proposed [3]. The
study shows that the heights of these towers can be decreased to
below 30 m while still being able to deliver the desired cooling
capacity under normal conditions [4].
The cooling performance of a NDDCT is often affected by many
environmental factors, which are not considered in existing design
theories of cooling towers. Crosswind is one of the most important
factors. A variety of investigations and measurements on wet and
dry natural draft cooling towers subject to crosswinds have been
carried out. Du Preez and Kroger [5,6] conducted a two-month long
full scale measurement of an operating natural draft dry-cooling
tower and revealed that wind effect on such towers causes a signif-
icant reduction in the heat dissipation rate of the tower. They also

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2014.12.018
0196-8904/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 Y. Lu et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 91 (2015) 238–248 239

Nomenclature

A area (m2) S/ volumetric source term for variable quantity /

Aa, Afr, Ar air-side area, front area and fin-root area of heat T, Ta temperature, air temperature (K)
exchangers, respectively (m2) Tavg, Tr mean air temperature and heater surface tempera-
Ac surface area of numerical cell (m2) ture, respectively (K)
a constant DTa, DT⁄ air temperature difference (K) and dimensionless
a1–a4 coefficients temperature difference
C discharge coefficient U, V, W velocity components in x-, y-, and z-direction (m s1)
c constant Vc numerical cell volume (m3)
cp specific heat (J kg1 K1) v velocity scalar (m s1)
D tower diameter (m) x, y, z cartesian co-ordinates
d outer diameter of finned tube (m)
Eu Euler number Greek letters
F source term for momentum equations a permeability (m2)
Fr Froude number b bulk thermal expansion coefficient (K1)
FT temperature correction factor l viscosity (kg m1 s1)
Gr Grashof number q, q density and mean density (kg m3)
H height, elevation (m)
h convective heat transfer coefficient (W m2 K1)
Vectors
Gk, Gkb generation term of k due to mean velocity gradients V velocity
and buoyancy, respectively
Gx, Gxb generation term of x due to mean velocity gradients
and buoyancy, respectively Subscripts
Kr, Kh, Km pressure loss coefficient a air
k turbulent kinetic energy (m2 s2) cw cross wind
e effective
ma air mass flow rate (kg s1)
Nu Nusselt number h heater
n exponent hx heat exchanger
i, o inside or inlet and outside or outlet
P pressure (Pa)
Pr Prandtl number m, p model and prototype
pt, pd fin pitch and tube diagonal pitch, respectively (m) N pure natural convection
Q heat transfer rate (W) r radiator
t tower
q heat flux (W m2)
R gas constant (J kg1 K1) u overall
Re Reynolds number 0, ref reference value
S modulus of the mean rate-of-strain tensor

compared their measurements with numerical simulations and
reported good agreement [5]. Wei et al. [7] investigated the
crosswind effect on NDDCTs with vertical heat exchangers through
a 1:200 scaled experiment model and concluded that wind lowers
the efficiency of dry-cooling towers. Numerical studies by Su et al.
[8], Fu and Zhai [9], Al-Waked and Behnia [1,10], Reshadatjoo et al.
[11], and Goodarzi et al. [12,13] arrived at similar results. All of
these previous studies focused on large natural draft dry cooling
towers over 100 m in height and 70 m in base diameter with heat
rejection rates exceeding 100 MW.
However, on small natural draft dry cooling towers with the
height less than 30 m, the crosswind effect could be very different
from that in large towers. The authors conducted a numerical
investigation on a 15 m-tall small natural draft dry cooling tower
[14]. In this study, a 3D full scale CFD tower model was simulated
under different wind speeds. At crosswind speeds up to 5 m/s, the
effect was similar to those observed in other studies with taller
towers: the tower performance decreased with increasing cross-
wind speed. But further increase of the wind speed resulted in a
reversal of this tendency [14]. No such reversal has been explicitly
reported in previous studies. There are several aspects in which
short towers differ from large ones. Firstly, because of the shorter
height, the natural convective buoyancy effect in small towers is
much weaker. Secondly, small cooling towers are not simply
scaled copies of large ones. For example, in large cooling towers,
the inlet height (i.e. distance between the horizontal heat
exchangers and ground) is usually over 12 m [15] which accounts
for only 1/10 of the total tower height, while in the 15 m-tall
small NDDCT the inlet height is 3 m. The larger ratio of inlet
height to total tower height in small towers exposes more
proportion of the tower to crosswind. Finally, because less tower
and heat exchanger support is needed resulting in a smaller flow
resistance, the horizontal airflow effect in small tower inlet is rel-
atively stronger. As the result of these factors, the natural convec-
tion airflow in small NDDCTs is much more vulnerable to wind.
But this does not mean crosswind effect is always harmful. In fact,
if the heat exchanger bundles are arranged horizontally and allow
the air flows downward (reversely) freely, it was found that cross-
wind could enhance the total heat transfer of the tower in certain
conditions [14].
Previous studies by the authors were all based on numerical
simulations. In this paper, results from an experimental study are
reported. A scaled version of the prototype 15 m-tall natural draft
dry cooling tower used in previous CFD studies was built and
tested in a wind tunnel. The heat exchangers were modelled using
a round finned-tube electric heater coupled with extra flow resis-
tance. The experimental data were analysed and compared with
the CFD results. Finally, the variation of cooling tower heat dump-
ing rate with the crosswind speed were quantitatively explained
through a proposed general expression.
240 Y. Lu et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 91 (2015) 238–248

2. Experiment design and rigs set up
2.1. Scaling law of the model
The cylinder-shaped prototype natural draft dry cooling tower
modelled in the previous CFD study is 15 m tall and 12 m in the
diameter with a 3 m tower inlet height [16]. The air motion in this
numerical model is driven by buoyancy, which satisfies the
momentum conservation equation using Boussinesq’s approxima-
tion, i.e.:
dV
q0 ^  rP þ l$2 V
¼ q0 gbðT  T 0 Þk
dt
where the term with k ^ represents the buoyancy force, existing only
in vertical direction. Constants q0 and T0 are the ambient (refer-
ence) density and temperature, respectively. With the presence of
crosswind, the mean velocity of air flow inside the cooling tower,
va, can be proposed as a function of eight parameters, namely:
v a ¼ f ðv aN ; v cw ; qai ; qao ; H; D; g; lÞ
where vaN is the averaged air flow velocity in the tower under pure
natural convection condition (windless condition); vcw is the cross-
wind speed at the height of tower outlet. qai and qao are the inlet
and outlet air densities. Since the air is assumed as ideal gas here,
the densities are calculated through qa = P0/RT, where R = 287.08 J/
kg K and the absolute ambient pressure P0 is roughly 1 atm. H and
D are tower height and diameters, respectively. As a key parameter
in NDDCT’s design theories, vaN satisfies the draft equation:
laboratory. For example, if the dimension of scaled tower model is
1/10 of the prototype, the vaN in the model is required to be 10
times larger by the similarity of ReD. However under that large
vaN, Fr in the model will never equal to that in the prototype. For
similar reasons, Grashof number cannot satisfy the similarity
either. Furthermore, the density ratio qao/qai is not considered in
the similarity either as it is dependent to the air temperature dif-
ferences. As a result, only limited similarity conditions were able
to be achieved between the prototype and the experimental model,
and Table 1 summarizes all the key dimensionless parameters and
their similarity criteria used in the scaled cooling tower model.
ð1Þ The subscripts m and p in Table 1 denote model and prototype,
respectively. Eq. (8) is satisfied by controlling the wind speed. Eqs.
(9) and (10) are implemented by finding proper air temperatures
and flow resistance, which will be discussed below. To increase
the validity of the experimental findings, a supplementary CFD
model was built with exactly the same dimensions as the experi-
mental rig.
ð2Þ
2.2. Model set up
The scaled experimental model is 1.2 m tall and 0.96 m in diam-
eter with a scale ratio of 1:12.5, and has the same cylindrical shape
as its prototype. The model consists of three main components: a
cylindrical tube as the cooling tower body, a circular finned-tube
electric heater as the horizontally arranged flat heat exchangers
and a stand as the tower base supports, as shown in Fig. 1.

qa v 2aN Table 1
ðqai  qao ÞgðH  Hi Þ  K hx ð3Þ
2 The key scaling parameters used in the experimental model.

where Hi is the tower inlet height, Khx is the pressure loss coefficient Scaling parameters Similarity criteria
H H
of heat exchangers. Aspect ratio of tower (7)
D m ¼ D p
In order to make the airflow condition in the scaled experimen-    
Crosswind speed ratio v cw v cw (8)
v aN m ¼ v aN p
tal model similar to that in the CFD prototype, Eqs. (1) and (2) are ! !
Froude number – Fr (9)
nondimensionalized first, yielding: v aN
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
q qao ¼ v aN ffi
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
q qao
ai gH ai gH
qao qao
m p
dV  Gr ^ 1    
¼ 2 Tk  Eur P þ $2 V  ð4Þ Euler number – Eu DP a
qa v 2aN m ¼
DP a
qa v 2aN p
(10)
dt Re Re
 
va v cw qao H 2
¼F ; ; ; Fr ; ReD ð5Þ
v aN v aN qai D
where the Grashof number Gr, the Reynolds number ReD, the Euler Unit mm
number Eu, and the densimetric Froude number Fr are defined
below: 960
2 3
gbðT r  T av g Þq aH qa v aN D
Gr ¼ ; ReD ¼ ;
l2 l
DP a 1 v aN
Eu ¼  K hx ; Fr ¼ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð6Þ
qa v 2aN 2 qai qao
gH
qao

In Eq. (6), Tavg, qa, and DPa are the mean air temperature, the
mean air density, and the air pressure loss across the heat exchan- 960
ger bundles, respectively. Tr is the mean surface temperature of
heat exchangers. Both Gr and ReD are based on the cooling tower
dimensions. It is noted that the Gr is actually related to Re2D =Fr 2 .
Because the Boussinesq’s approximation states that (qai  qao)/
qao = b(Tao  Tai), whereas (Tao  Tai) correlates with (Tr  Tavg). In
addition to Grashof number and other dimensionless numbers in
Eq. (6), three new independent dimensionless parameters are
defined in Eq. (5), namely: wind speed ratio vcw/vaN, density ratio
24 0
qao/qai, and cooling tower aspect ratio H/D.
Theoretically, the dynamic similarity between the scaled model
and the prototype is achieved when all above dimensionless
parameters are the same for both. However, it is impossible to sat-
isfy the similarity for ReD and Fr at the same time in a wind tunnel Fig. 1. The dimensions of the scaled cooling tower model with the round heater.
 Y. Lu et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 91 (2015) 238–248
The heater contains 27 heating spiral-fin tube elements of dif-
ferent lengths which are specially designed and manufactured so
that they generate same heat at each unit length. The heater is
powered by three-phase AC and has a maximum heating power
of 25 kW. All the heating tube elements are arranged in a plane
with a constant spacing Pt of 35 ± 2 mm between any two tubes.
The tube diameter – do and fin diameter – df are 13 ± 0.2 mm and
24.8 ± 0.2 mm, respectively.
The geometric dimensions of the heater need not be scaled with
the dimension ratio since the heat exchanger bundles are treated
as a high-temperature porous medium in authors’ studies. There-
fore the heater only needs to provide heat and resistance for the
airflow. The local heat transfer details and the flow fields between
the tubes are not of interest to the purposes of the current study.
The overall pressure drop coefficient through the heater Kh can
be calculated using the correlation for single-row heat exchanger
bundles with similar dimensions [17], i.e.:
 1:849
Pt Aa
K h ¼ 2:271Re0:325
c ð11Þ
do Ac
where the Reynolds number Rec = qvcdo/l is based on the minimum
flow area of the heater. Ac and Aa is the minimum free flow area and
total surface area of the heater, respectively.
The pressure loss of the heater is not enough to validate Eq. (10)
and a round mesh screen is placed just above the heater during the
experiments to supply the extra pressure resistance. The pressure
loss coefficient Km can be estimated by the following correlation:
  
1 1  a2
Km ¼
C2 a2
where a is mesh permeability, and C is discharge coefficient, which
is given as a function
pffiffiffiffiffiffi of mesh aperture-based Reynolds number Re,
namely: C ¼ 0:1 Re for range Re 6 20. By selecting a proper mesh
size, the total pressure loss coefficient Kh + Km achieves a value that
satisfies Eq. (10).
The electric input power of the heater is adjustable through a
three-phase thyristor controller. So the air exiting the heater can
obtain a desired temperature Tao and consequently a density qao
under pure natural convection conditions. With this controlled
density, the similarity in Froude number, i.e. Eq. (9) can be
satisfied.
Sensors arrangements in
cross-section of the tower
Sensors
36° 300 mm
2m
Circular pattern
Wind
direction
120 mm Ambient
Central line pattern
Fig. 2. The schematic diagram of experiment system and the layouts of the sensors.
241
2.3. Testing instruments and methods
The schematic diagram of the experiment system is shown in
Fig. 2. In the cooling tower model, the temperature sensors are
arranged at five levels: underneath (90 mm under the heater), hea-
ter level, bottom (50 mm above the heater), middle (480 mm above
the heater), and top (50 mm below the tower exit), while the veloc-
ity sensors are mainly in the middle level of the tower body. Tem-
perature sensors at the heater level are directly attached to the
surfaces of finned tubes. At other levels, both temperature and
velocity sensors are arranged in either a central straight line align-
ing with the wind direction in a pitch of 120 mm or a circular pat-
tern around the central axis, as seen in Fig. 2. Table 2 lists the main
sensors/instruments used.
The experiment is run based on two basic modes: constant
heating power and constant heater surface temperature. In the first
mode, the electric power of the heater is fixed, which corresponds
to the CFD model with a constant heat flux. In the second mode,
the surface temperature of the heater finned tube is monitored
by the attached sensors and controlled by the PC. This constant
temperature equals to the heater surface temperature in pure free
convection when there is no crosswind. This model corresponds to
the CFD model with a fixed heat exchanger temperature.
During the measurements, the flow conditions at each cross-
wind speed remain stable for at least 10 min before starting lod-
ging the measured data. And the lodgment is at a sampling rate
of 1 Hz lasting for at least 10 min.
2.4. Wind tunnel
ð12Þ
An open circuit wind tunnel [18] is used in the experiment. The
main fan of the tunnel is a centrifugal blower driven by a 75 kW
motor with the capacity to deliver up to 20 m3 air per second
[19]. The working section where the cooling tower model is placed
has a length of 8 m and the cross-section of 1.75 m by 1.75 m.
There is a clearance of 0.55 m between tower top and the section
ceiling.
Considering that the limited ceiling height may affect the heat
dumping performance of the cooling tower model, a parallel test
was done with a part of working section replaced by an open chan-
nel without the ceiling. The channel simply consists of two smooth
boards which the two vertical walls on two sides. The channel has
Cooling tower
Data
Top acquisition
system
Middle
Bottom Heater
power
Heater
controller
Underneath
PC
Signal
conversion
module
242 Y. Lu et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 91 (2015) 238–248
Table 2
Sensors/instruments used in the experiment.
Quantities measured Sensors/instruments
Air temperature Thermistor
RTD
Air velocity Hot-wire anemometer (OMEGA)
Hot-wire anemometer (TSI)
Current Digital voltage/ampere meter
Voltage Digital voltage/ampere meter
the same height and span as the wind tunnel working section so
that it can join up with the remaining part of latter perfectly. The
scaled cooling tower model was tested inside the open channel,
and in spite of the absence of ceiling, the airflow attacking on the
tower model is found generally uniform. The measured results
were compared with those obtained in the original working sec-
tion. It was found both results had small differences less than 7%
for the crosswind speed of 1.5 m/s or higher, but at lower speeds
there were some moderate differences up to 26%. Therefore, final
results for low crosswind speeds (<1.5 m/s) discussed in this study
were actually obtained in the open channel configuration.
3. Comparable CFD model for validation
Since the flow conditions for the scaled tower model and the
15 m-tall cooling tower prototype are not completely similar, a
new 3D CFD model which is identical to the experimental cooling
tower was built to validate the results obtained in the wind tunnel
tests. This CFD tower model has the exactly same geometric
dimensions: 1.2 m tall, 0.96 m in diameter, and 0.24 m in tower
inlet height as well as the same characteristics of heat exchangers.
The computational domain has the same size of the wind tunnel
working section as shown in Fig. 3 for windy conditions, while
for the no-wind case, a cylindrical domain [14] is used.
The modelling approach described in author’s previous work
[14] is used in this CFD model, which is briefly summarized here.
3.1. Solver and mesh
The numerical simulation is implemented using the commercial
CFD code Fluent. The pressure-based steady-state solver is used,
which bases the governing equations on the conservation equa-
tions of mass, momentum, and energy. The airflow turbulence is
modelled using the realizable k–e model which has a better ability
to capture the mean feature of complex flow structures than the
standard k–e model does at a same computing cost [20]. The air
is treated as incompressible through the Boussinesq’s approxima-
tion. The second order of upwind and segregated algorithm-SIM-
PLE are applied to the discretization scheme. The convergence
Wind
Unit: m
direction 8
Velocity
0.96 Wall/Pressure outlet
inlet
Wall
1.2
1.75
* Wall
Pressure
y outlet
Porous medium 1.75
x
z and Radiator
Porous jump
Fig. 3. The identical CFD cooling tower model and the boundary conditions.
Measuring range Uncertainty/accuracy
0–150 °C ±0.2 °C
0–150 °C ±0.2 °C
0–5.08 m/s ±1.5% of full measuring range
0–30 m/s ±3% of reading
0–90 A ±0.5% of reading
0–500 V ±0.5% of reading
criteria are that the scaled residuals of all variables (except energy)
drop to the order of 105 and the monitored variables remain sta-
ble when iterating. The 1.2 m-high CFD model is discretised by the
structured prism mesh. The cell size of near wall or in high-gradi-
ent regions is refined to 20 mm, so that the total amount of the
mesh cells is around 1,750,000. A test for grid independence was
done before the final simulations.
3.2. Boundary conditions
The no-slip adiabatic wall boundary condition in [14] is applied
on two lateral sides. The top face is set as the wall or pressure out-
let boundary, with the latter corresponding to the open channel
tests. The upstream and downstream faces of the domain are set
to velocity inlet and pressure outlet, respectively. In the velocity
inlet boundary the uniform velocity profile of the wind tunnel is
used with the turbulence intensity I calculated by:
1=8
I ¼ 0:16Rehd ð13Þ
where Rehd is the Reynolds number based on hydraulic diameter
which is 1.75 m here.
The 1.2 m-tall CFD model uses the porous media associated
with the radiator boundary simulate the heat exchanger. The por-
ous media represent the pressure loss across the heat exchanger by
adding an additional source term Fi in each momentum equation,
while the radiator boundary condition only reflects the heat trans-
fer between the heat exchangers and the air by computing the heat
flux qr. Fi and qr are calculated using the equations below [21]:
 
le K
Fi ¼  v þ qv 2 ði ¼ x; y; zÞ and qr ¼ hr ðT r  T ao Þ ð14Þ
a i 2 i
Both the aerodynamic and thermal characteristics of this heat
exchanger model are same as those in the experimental model
rather than the CFD prototype. Specifically, a is the permeability
of mesh screen and K is the sum of kh and km in Eqs. (11) and
(12). The total convective heat transfer coefficient hr can be
roughly estimated by the heat transfer correlation proposed in
[17] which is also valid for this heater, i.e.:
 0:209
hr do Pt
Nu ¼ ¼ 0:495Re0:509
c ð15Þ
k do
With above modelling approaches, all the dimensionless scaling
parameters in this CFD model are identical to those in the experi-
ment. The results from this model will be therefore directly com-
pared with the experiment results. The comparison with the
15 m-tall prototype will also be reported in terms of dimensionless
numbers, although its agreement with the experimental results is
expected to be weaker for the full-scale cooling tower.
 Y. Lu et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 91 (2015) 238–248 243

4. Results and discussions Table 3

The uncertainty of measured velocity and temperature when the heating power is
5.216 kW.
4.1. Non-wind case and error analysis
Measured quantity Arithmetic mean over all Standard
sensors deviation
The scaled NDDCT model was tested in a pure natural convec-
tion manner first without using the wind tunnel. The heater in this Velocity at middle level 0.32 m/s 0.03 m/s
Top level temperature 42.5 °C 0.8 °C
case worked at certain constant powers. The natural convective
Middle level temperature 43.1 °C 0.4 °C
airflow velocity and temperature were measured by the sensors Bottom level temperature 43.3 °C 0.2 °C
at positions illustrated in Fig. 2. Figs. 4 and 5 plot the real time Underneath level 25.9 °C 0.2 °C
mean data recorded at different levels in a period of 700 s when temperature
the constant power is P he ¼ 5:216 kW. Ambient (inlet) 24.7 °C 0.04 °C
temperature
The uncertainty analysis for each sensor was done based on the
measured data following the procedure introduced in [22]. Table 3
lists the mean velocity and temperature at each corresponding
Table 4
level and their standard deviations. Velocity data has a relative
A comparison between the experimental and CFD results when the heating power is
large uncertainty which indicates that the free convective air flow 5.216 kW.
in such scale tower is highly turbulent. Therefore, the measure-
Parameters Measurement 1.2 m-tall CFD model
ment should be taken over a long period of time (>10 min).
A direct comparison of the results between the measurement Mean air velocity (vaN) 0.32 m/s 0.33 m/s
Mean air outlet temperature 43.3 °C 43.6 °C
and the identical scaled CFD model (1.2 m-tall) is made in Table 4,
(bottom level)
which indicates good agreement between both. Total heat transfer rate (QN) 4926 W 5099 W
The total heat transfer rate 4926 W in the measurement column
refers to the heat absorption rate which is calculated by Eq. (16)
using the average temperature and air velocity in Table 4:
The measurement results in the no-wind case have verified that
the target similarity is satisfied for the Froude number and Euler
qai þ qao
Q N ¼ ma C pa ðT ao  T ai Þ ¼ v aN AC pa ðT ao  T ai Þ ð16Þ number. Table 5 tabulates the calculated Fr and Eu of the CFD pro-
2
totype and the scaled model at the heating power of 5.216 kW. The
other dimensionless parameters in Eqs. (4) and (5) except the wind
where qai and qao are calculated using q = P0/RT. This calculated speed ratio are also included in the table for a comparison.
heat transfer rate is 5.6% smaller than the heating power of the hea-
ter Phe. 4.2. Crosswind effects at constant heat flux

The measurements under crosswinds was run first at the con-

0.8
Mean air velocity stant heating power mode, e.g. the heater operated at
0.7 Phe ¼ 5:216 kW. Correspondingly, the radiators in CFD models
0.6 had constant heat flux.
Velocity (m/s)

0.5
4.2.1. Mean velocity
0.4
Under wind conditions, the hot airflow speed va inside the
0.3 tower is dependent on both the buoyancy and the crosswind,
0.2 and its direction is no longer as uniform as in the case of no-wind.
0.1 In the experiment, va is the mean value over all the measurements
of the anemometers arranged in both the layouts at the model
0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 middle level. As defined in Eq. (5), the ratio va/vaN is a function of
Time (s) vcw/vaN. Fig. 6 shows the correlation obtained in the experiment
model (solid line), the 1.2 m-tall identical CFD model and the pro-
Fig. 4. The real-time mean air velocity at tower model middle level as indicated totype CFD model (15 m-tall). The error bars show the measure-
under pure free convection condition when the heating power is 5.216 kW. ment uncertainty estimations for both x and y axis.
All three show a similar turn-around trend that first decrease
and then increase with a minimum somewhere. But the slopes of
50 the curve for the 15 m-tall prototype CFD model are different from
Top
45 the other two. This is mostly because the similarity between the
Middle
Temperature (°C)

40 Bottom
Underneath Table 5
35
Ambient Comparisons of the dimensionless parameters between the prototype cooling tower
30 and the scaled model.

25 Parameters CFD prototype Scaled model

(15 m-tall) (at the heating power
20 of 5.216 kW)

15 Froude number – Fr 0.104 0.109

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 Euler number – Eu 27.31 26.37
Aspect ratio – H/D 1.25 1.25
Time (s)
Reynolds number – ReD 276,103 17,774
Grashof number – Gr 3.19  1012 4.27  109
Fig. 5. The real-time mean air temperature at different levels as indicated under
Density ratio – qao/qai 0.963 0.941
pure free convection condition when the heating power is 5.216 kW.
244 Y. Lu et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 91 (2015) 238–248
2 absolute air speeds were taken in CFD models. Calculations on
1.8 measurement
CFD 15 m-tall
1.6
CFD 1.2 m-tall
1.4
1.2
va / vaN
1 The temperature distribution is investigated to better under-
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
vcw / vaN
Fig. 6. Air velocity vcw/vaN changes with the crosswind speed at middle plane as
indicated, both experimental and numerical results at constant heat flux.
model and the prototype in CFD simulations is not completely sat-
isfied. On the other hand, the comparison between the experimen-
tal result and that in the 1.2-tall m CFD model shows a generally
good agreement. Some difference occurs when the velocity ratio
is 11 or more.
It is noted that the speed sensors used in the experiment only
measured the local air speeds at the sensor tips but not the precise
flow directions. This fact implies that the observed increase of air
speed post the critical wind speed in the measurement can be
attributed more to the airflow circulations in the cooling tower
than the acceleration of the uni-directional airflow. In fact, similar
situations can be found in the CFD results from the 1.2 m-tall cool-
ing tower model. Fig. 7 shows the velocity vectors at mid-xy plane
of the cooling tower under no-wind condition and at crosswind
speeds of 2 m/s, 4 m/s, and 6 m/s, respectively. 2 m/s, 4 m/s, and
6 m/s correspond to vcw/vaN of around 6.25, 12.5, and 18.75, respec-
tively. The red dashed lines represent the plane where the speed
sensors were placed in the experiment and where the averaged
Fig. 7. Velocity vectors at mid-xy plane under no-wind condition (a) and when crosswind speed = 2 m/s (b), 4 m/s (c) and 6 m/s (d).
these results suggest that the averaged air speed at the plane in
Fig. 7(b) is the lowest with the highest speed occurring in Fig. 7(d).
4.2.2. Temperature distribution
stand the airflow behaviour. The air temperature is measured at
seven positions along the aforementioned central line of each level
inside the cooling tower model. To eliminate the influence of the
environmental temperature on the experiment results, the temper-
ature difference DTa is defined in Eq. (17):
DT a ¼ T a  T 0 ð17Þ
where Ta and T0 are the temperature at the measurement point and
constant inlet temperature, respectively. Figs. 8–10 plot the distri-
butions of the DTa in the central lines with error bars at different
levels as indicated when crosswind speed changes from 0 m/s to
3 m/s. The x-axis in these figures is ratio of x to tower diameter D,
where x is the x-coordinate of the position of a temperature sensor.
And the crosswind direction is same as the x-axis, namely: x/D = 0 is
windward side while x/D = 1 is leeward side.
The temperature distributes nearly symmetric along with the
central line at any level of the tower in free convection case. The
crosswind tends to increase the temperature much more on wind-
ward side than on leeward side in the tower top, as the draft air-
flow on windward side slows down while on the other side the
ambient cool air penetrates into the tower. At the measuring level
underneath the heat exchangers, temperature increases signifi-
cantly in windward side when the crosswind speed rises. These
profiles clearly indicate that the reversed airflow occurs at wind-
ward part due to the local air vortices, which brings heat down
from the heat exchangers. At bottom level above the heat exchang-
ers, the maximum temperature position generally moves from
windward side towards leeward side as the wind speed increases,
because the negative pressure zone under the heat exchanger in
 Y. Lu et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 91 (2015) 238–248 245

40 0 m/s windward side is expanding. The position where vortex centre is

35
0.5 m/s has the lowest air speed and thus highest temperature.
0.75 m/s The temperature distribution obtained in experiment then is
30 1 m/s
compared with the results of the 1.2 m-tall CFD model using the
Ta-T0 (°C)

2 m/s
25 3 m/s dimensionless temperature difference as defined in Eq. (18):
4 m/s
20 Ta  T0
DT  ¼ ð18Þ
15 T aN  T 0
x/D=0
x/D=1
10 where the divider TaN  T0 is the temperature difference between
the outlet and inlet air of heat exchangers in pure natural convec-
5 y
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 z x tion case. Figs. 11, 12 are 13 show (Ta  T0)/(TaN  T0) in the central
x/ D lines of tower bottom, top, and under the heat exchangers from
both the experiment results with uncertainty estimations and the
Fig. 8. Temperature distributions in the central line of bottom level at different CFD results at crosswind speeds as indicated.
crosswind speed at constant heat flux.
These comparisons show a satisfying agreement between the
experiment and CFD results for bottom and underneath levels.
However at the tower top, the temperature distribution predicted
35 0 m/s
by CFD behaves quite different from that in experiment. In fact, the
0.5 m/s
30
0.75 m/s
air flow field near either the tower outlet or the tower inlet is
1 m/s rather complicated. Fig. 14 shows the turbulence intensity contour
25
2 m/s at the mid-xy plane of the 1.2 m-tall CFD model at the wind speed
Ta-T0 (°C)

20 3 m/s of 4 m/s. High turbulence intensity occurs in both the regions.

4 m/s
15
Under such a physical condition, the CFD results in the particular
regions would be sensitive to the choice of the turbulence model.
x/D=0
10 x/D=1 It is possible that the realizable k–e model used in this study over-
5 estimates the vortices [20,23]. Thus, the degree of the mixing of the
y
hot air coming up the tower with the cooler crosswind is overesti-
0 mated, resulting in different exit-plane temperatures. The situation
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 z x
x/ D might be improved with a more complicated, non-RANS
(Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes) turbulence model like LES
Fig. 9. Temperature distributions in the central line of top level at different
crosswind speeds and constant heat flux. (Large Eddy Simulation) [24].

2 CFD 0.75 m/s

30 0 m/s
CFD 4 m/s
0.5 m/s
Measurement 0.75 m/s
(Ta-T0) / (TaN -T0)

25 0.75 m/s 1.5

Measurement 4 m/s
1 m/s
Ta-T0 (°C)

20 2 m/s
1
3 m/s
15 4 m/s
0.5
10
x/D=0
5 0
x/D=1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
0 y x/D
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 x
z
x/ D Fig. 12. A comparison of temperature distributions in central line of top level when
crosswind speed is 0.75 m/s and 4 m/s between the experiment and CFD results at
Fig. 10. Temperature distributions in central line underneath the heater at different constant heat flux.
crosswind speeds and constant heat flux.

2.5
1.4 CFD 0.75 m/s
CFD 4m/s
2 1.2 Measurement 0.75 m/s
(Ta-T0) / (TaN -T0)

Measurement 4 m/s
(Ta-T0) / (TaN -T0)

1
1.5
0.8

1 0.6
CFD 0.75 m/s 0.4
0.5 CFD 4m/s
Measurement 0.75 m/s 0.2
Measurement 4 m/s
0 0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
x/D x/D

Fig. 11. A comparison of temperature distributions in central line of bottom level Fig. 13. A comparison of temperature distributions in central line underneath the
when crosswind speed is 0.75 m/s and 4 m/s between the experiment and CFD heat exchangers when crosswind speed is 0.75 m/s and 4 m/s between the
results at constant heat flux. experiment and CFD results at constant heat flux.
246 Y. Lu et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 91 (2015) 238–248
Fig. 14. Turbulent intensity contour at the mid-xy plane when crosswind speed is 4 m/s from CFD results.
4.3. Crosswind effect on overall heat transfer rate at constant heat
exchanger temperatures
To examine the crosswind effect on the total heat transfer of the
heat exchanger, the experiment at variable heating power mode
was conducted. During the measurements, the electric power of
the heater was regulated, so that the temperature of the heater
surface at all wind speeds was maintained at the same value as
the surface temperature in pure natural convection case. Because
of the energy conservation, this power was roughly equal to the
total heat transfer rate by finned tubes of heater – Q. Correspond-
ingly the radiator in CFD models was set to a fixed temperature.
Similarly, a dimensionless total heat transfer rate can be defined
as Q/QN, where QN is the heat dumping rate in pure natural convec-
tion case. It is proposed that Q/QN is a function of wind velocity
ratio vcw/vaN as well, i.e.:
 
Q v cw
¼f
QN v aN
The correlation obtained from the experiment data with error
bars are displayed in Fig. 15 where a comparison with the results
of two CFD models, namely 1.2 m-tall and 15 m-tall, is given as
well.
All the total heat transfer rate curves in Fig. 15 experience a
similar trend-first decrease and then increase with the minimums
at certain wind velocities. And for the reason again that the incom-
plete similarity between the scaled tower model and 15 m-tall CFD
model, the curve for the latter shows different behaviours. It is
noted from Fig. 15 that at wind velocity ratio between 0 and 12,
1.4
1.2
1
0.8
Q / QN
0.6
0.4
0.2
0 NuN
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 52
vcw / vaN
Fig. 15. The total heat dumped by the cooling tower at different crosswind speeds
at constant heat exchanger temperatures.
the measurement result agrees quite well with the one in its iden-
tical 1.2 m-tall CFD model with the latter slightly larger. But at
higher velocity ratios (i.e. >12), the CFD curve starts flattening
out. This fact provides evidence that CFD model overestimates
the airflow vortices near cooling tower outlet at high wind velocity
ratios and thus results in an underestimation of the cooling tower
performance.
The interesting trend of the heat transfer rate was preliminarily
explained in author’s previous work as that with the presence of
crosswind, the heat from the horizontal heat exchanger bundles
is taken away by both the upward air stream through the tower
outlet and the horizontal airflow through the tower inlet [14].
The latter enhances significantly as the wind speed increases,
resulting in a rise of the total heat transfer rate. In fact, the first
way in which heat is transferred and dissipated is dominated by
natural convection in upward direction, while the second way is
mainly via forced convection in horizontal direction. So the heat
transfer in the cooling tower under crosswinds is a combined con-
ð19Þ
vection problem. If Nunatural and Nuforced denote the heat transfer
due to pure natural convection and pure forced convection respec-
tively. The overall heat transfer coefficient of the cooling tower
under crosswind conditions – Nu can be expressed as [25]:
 1=n
Nu ¼ Nunnatural þ Nunforced ð20Þ
where the exponent n is a constant and is suggested to be 3 or 4
[25].
In non-wind condition, the heat transfer coefficient NuN, which
is exactly the same number as the pure natural convection coeffi-
cient Nunatural, can be calculated by empirical correlations whose
general term is similar to NuN ¼ a1 Rebd Pr1=3 , where Red is based on
the diameter of the heat exchanger tubes d and the air velocity
at the minimum free flow area – vc [15]. The exponents b varies
slightly case to case around 0.6 for 103 < Red < 2  105 [15,25].
Obviously vc is always proportional to vaN, thus Red = f(vaN).
When the crosswind exists, the vertical hot airflow is deflected
and thus slower while just leaving the tower exit, resulting in the
reduction in Nunatural. In an earlier study, Hooman [26] has con-
Measurement
cluded that the heat transfer coefficients ratio Nunatural/NuN can
CFD 15 m-tall
be roughly expressed using wind velocity ratio vcw/vaN, namely:
CFD 1.2 m-tall vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Nunatural uu 1
 tqffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð21Þ
1 þ ðv cw =v aN Þ2
On the other hand, the forced convection heat transfer occurs
mainly when the airflow parallel passing by the heat exchanger
bundles. If one assumes the bundle to be a hot square plane, the
 Y. Lu et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 91 (2015) 238–248 247

1.4 5. Conclusions
1.2
The effect of crosswind on the small natural draft dry cooling
1 towers is investigated in the wind tunnel experiment. The study
CFD results of 15m-tall
tower uses a 1:12.5 scaled cooling tower model equipped with a round
0.8 Combined convection
electric heater. The air velocity, temperature, and the heating
Q / QN

0.6 Natural convection term power have been measured under different crosswind conditions.
Forced convection term The experimental results are compared with the results from its
0.4
prototype CFD model – a 15 m-tall, 12 m in diameter NDDCT,
0.2 and a same-size CFD model (1.2 m-tall, 0.96 m in diameter). Based
on the comparison, a rough correlation of heat transfer rate and the
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 crosswind speed is proposed. The experimental study finds:
vcw / vaN
1. The results of the experiment and the 15 m-tall prototype CFD
Fig. 16. The heat dump rate–wind speed correlation for the 15 m-tall NDDCT. model show a similar trend in the heat dissipation rate subject
to the crosswind but the slopes of the curves are different. This
is because the similarity between the experimental rig and the
convective heat transfer coefficient over the plane is approximately
prototype is not completely satisfied. However, the results for
in the term of Nuforced ¼ a2 Recx Pr 1=3 [27], where Rex is based on the
the experimental rig and its exact CFD representation agree
forced parallel airflow speed and the distance x from the leading
generally well, which indicates that the CFD modelling is
edge of the bundle. Here x is relevant to the length or width of a
reasonable.
heat exchanger bundle. Obviously Rex correlates with the cross-
2. The cooling tower model experiment verifies that the reversed
wind speed vcw, i.e. Rex = f(vcw). c is typically 0.8 [28]. Therefore,
airflow exist near the heat exchanger level as the CFD models
similar to Eq. (21), a ratio of Nuforced to NuN can be defined, which
predicted. In certain high wind speeds, the CFD model might
is a function of vcw/vaN as well, i.e.:
overestimate the vortices near the tower outlet, resulting in a
pessimistic prediction of the cooling tower performance in this
crosswind speed range.
 0:8 3. The heat transfer coefficient of NDDCTs under crosswind can be
Nuforced a2 Re0:8
x Pr
1=3
v cw
¼ ¼ a4 ð22Þ proposed as a combination of a pure natural convection heat
NuN a1 Red Pr 1=3
0:6 v aN
transfer coefficient and a forced one. In small cooling towers,
Based on Eqs. (20)–(22), it can be finally proposed that: because of the low buoyancy-induced airflow, natural convec-
tion heat transfer is comparable with forced convection at high
wind speed range. Therefore, the total heat transfer rate experi-
 n  n 1=n ences a turnabout at a certain crosswind velocity. Below this
Nu Nunatural Nuforced velocity, the total heat transfer decreases with increasing wind
¼ þ
NuN NuN NuN speed. As the crosswind speed is increased above this critical
8" 9
<   0:25n " 
#  #n 1=n value, the forced-convection component becomes more and
v cw 2 v cw 0:8 = Q more dominant and the total heat transfer rate increases with
¼ 1 þ a3 þ a4  ð23Þ
: v aN v aN ; QN increasing crosswind speed.

In Eq. (23), a3 is an additional speed ratio correction factor to Acknowledgements

the proposal of Hooman [26]. Both a3 and a4 are functions of many
parameters including the Red and/or Grashof number of the cooling
tower in still air, heat exchanger characteristics, and the cooling
tower shape, e.g. the aspect ratio, etc. In NDDCTs, Q/QN is roughly
equal to Nu/NuN.
Eq. (23) gives a general term of correlations between heat trans-
fer coefficient ratio Nu/NuN and the wind velocity ratio vcw/vaN for
horizontal heat exchanger NDDCTs subject to crosswind. For a par-
ticular instance – the 15 m-tall prototype cooling tower discussed
in this paper, a standard nonlinear regression analysis has been
made based on the above results to find out that the values of a3
and a4 are 0.033 and 0.052, respectively. The squared residual of
this regression – R2 is 0.958 for n = 3. Thus, the correlation of Eq.
(23) with these numbers is plotted using the solid line in Fig. 16.
The natural draft convection term and forced convection term in
Eq. (23) are also presented in the figure, while the dots repeat
the CFD results of the 15 m-tall tower shown in Fig. 15.
In small NDDCTs, the forced convection term gradually becomes
comparable with natural convection one as the crosswind gets fas-
ter, which is the direct reason why the overall heat dump rate fol-
lows the V-shaped trend. It is noted that this trend is different from
the one observed in large cooling towers which continuously
declines with the increase of the wind speed [5,10,26]. The reason
is that the natural draft effect in large cooling towers is sufficiently
strong so that the forced convection term is negligible.
This research was performed as part of the Australian Solar
Thermal Research Initiative (ASTRI), a project supported by the
Australian Government, through the Australian Renewable Energy
Agency (ARENA).
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