Computational Analysis of Closed Wet Cooling Towers

The thermal and hydraulic performance of plain and oval tubes closed wet cooling tower (CWCT) are investigated numerically. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD), ANSYS Fluent 12.1, is implemented for the numerical solution. Species transport without reactions is adopted to simulate the mass transfer from the air-deluge water interface to the air. Different turbulence models and near-wall treatments are used to assess which model fits the data better. The mass transfer Colburn factor j m , and friction factor f are presented and compared with experimental data. The proposed CFD model is also applied to predict the mass transfer coefficient of another CWCT and compares well with the experimental data.