Performance Comparison of Heat Transfer Plates for Cooling Tower Air Heater Through Numerical Analysis

Abstract

In this study, numerical analysis was performed on three shapes of heat transfer plates (chevron, wave and dimple type), which are currently used as fillers of cooling towers. Results show that heat transfer rates per consumed power were larger for enhanced plates as compared with that of plain plate. Highest heat transfer coefficient was obtained for wave shape followed by chevron and dimple shape. For wave shape, cross corrugations induced significant mixing of fluids, which enhanced the heat transfer. Friction factor yielded a similar trend with the heat transfer coefficient. However, heat transfer rate and pressure drop per sheet was the largest for chevron shape, due to the largest heat transfer area per sheet.