CFD TWO-SCALE MODEL OF A WET NATURAL DRAFT COOLING TOWER

A 2-D axisymmetric model of multiphase heat, mass, and momentum transfer phenomena in natural draft cooling tower is developed using a CFD code Fluent. The fill of the tower is modeled as a porous medium. The energy and mass sources in this zone are evaluated solving a separate 1-D model of mass and heat exchange. The spatial dependence of the sources is accounted for by dividing the fill into a set of vertical channels. The CFD solver produces boundary conditions for each channel, while the model of the channel exports the heat and mass sources to the CFD solver. To accelerate the calculations, an original technique known as the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) is applied. This approach produces a reduced dimensionality model resulting in significant time economy and accuracy loss lower than 2%. The Euler-Euler multiphase model is used in the rain zone. The simulation results have been validated against experimental data coming from field measurements of a large industrial installation.