Experimental analysis of heat and mass transfer phenomena in a direct contact evaporative cooling tower

Experimental investigation on thermal performance of natural draft wet cooling towers employing an innovative wind-creator setup

“…For this purpose, Lucas et al [15] investigated the thermal performance of a forced draft counterflow WCT fitted with different drift eliminators. Moreover, Lemouari et al [16] investigated the mass and heat transfer between water and air flow rates which have indirect contact with a packed cooling tower. Consequently, modification of the heat transfer and generalized mass coefficients was recommended by involving effects of water and air transportation.…”

Optimization criteria for the performance of heat and mass transfer in indirect evaporative cooling systems

“…This is defined by the mass flow rate ratio of the water entering the user's heat exchanger (3) to the circulating water supplied for the users, i.e. If the flow distribution ratio, , is fixed, the system has only one variable, i.e.…”

“…(2) The design and optimization of evaporative cooling cycles, including two-stage or three-stage combined direct/ indirect evaporative cooling [9,10] and combined liquid desiccant dehumidification and evaporative cooling [11]. (3) The performance analysis and optimization theory of evaporative cooling systems, with emphasis on exergy analysis [12,13]. In exergy theory, researchers always take exergy efficiency as an assessment index to analyze the exergy loss distribution of all irreversible processes in the system.…”

“…Since the ambient air is clean and low cost, evaporative cooling is the focus of wide interest and applications. Many scientists have undertaken a large amount of research on evaporative cooling systems, mainly on the following three aspects: (1) The analysis of the impact factors on the performance of evaporative cooling systems, such as temperature, humidity and the mass flow rate of moist air [1,2], temperature and the mass flow rate of water [3] and direct/ indirect evaporative cooling with different structures, such as plate types [4,5], tubular types [6,7] and heat pipes [8] etc. (2) The design and optimization of evaporative cooling cycles, including two-stage or three-stage combined direct/ indirect evaporative cooling [9,10] and combined liquid desiccant dehumidification and evaporative cooling [11].…”

A new approach to analysis and optimization of evaporative cooling system I: Theory

“…Due to its low cost and potential high efficiency, evaporative cooling [4] has been viewed as an attractive option, when compared to other existing ones as vapor compression, absorption/adsorption and thermoelectric refrigeration systems, for both regions with dry and hot climate [5] and more temperate climates [6]. Still in order to improve the performance of the evaporative cooling units, extensive research has been conducted in analyzing the influences of such factors as moist air velocity, temperature and humidity [7,8], water velocity and temperature [9], longitudinal heat conduction [10], heat and mass exchanging materials properties [11], and geometries [12] on the efficiency of various traditional and novel evaporative coolers, including plate/tube type indirect evaporative cooler [7,13], compact-plate cross flow indirect evaporative cooler [10], and semi-indirect/dew-point evaporative cooler [14,15]. Several active or passive evaporative cooling systems have been developed, using wind tower [16], intermittent evaporative roof cooling [17e19], automatic wind-tracking evaporative cooling [20] and two-stage indirect/direct evaporative cooling [21,22].…”