Effect Of The Water Inlet Temperature And Flow Rate On The Energy And Exergy Performance of A Forced Draft Counter Wet Cooling Tower

Abstract

Cooling towers, wherein water and air are contacted directly with each other, are specialized heat exchangers. These open-topped, tall, cubical or cylindrical shaped are responsible for reducing the temperature of the water that generated from the industrial or HVAC systems. The performance of the forced draft wet cooling tower is investigated experimentally. The performance analysis is based on the first and second law of thermodynamics. The impact of the inlet water temperature and water inlet flow rate is investigated. The inlet water temperature is varied from 28 °C to 42 °C for the water flow rates of (0.03, 0.05 and 0.075 kg/sec). The results reveal that the cooling capacity, cooling range, thermal efficiency and the total exergy destruction increase according to the increase in the inlet water temperature and the water flow rate. The maximum cooling range is found to be 14.8 °C with the maximum thermal efficiency of 74 %. On other hand, the exergy efficiency decreases with the increasing of the inlet water temperature and the water flow rate within a range of 11.9 % to 57.8 %.