Thermal Performance Investigation of Mechanical Draft Cooling Tower Using Psychrometric Gun Technique

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental work that studies the performance of a counterflow cooling tower with expanded wire mesh packing. Due to complicated configuration of the expanded wire mesh packing surface, it is not possible to measure the temperature of the air in the intermediate section of the cooling tower, but only that of the exit air and water temperature. In the experimental study a new concept of psychrometric gun technique is used to measure dry/wet bulb temperature of air at intermediate points of tower packing. First, the paper elaborates on the effect of atmospheric conditions, water mass flow rate and inlet temperature on the variation of the thermodynamics properties of moist air inside the cooling tower and thermal performance characteristics. Second, exergy analysis is applied to study the cooling tower potential of performance using the psychrometric gun technique. An analytical model was compared with experimental data.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors thank the authorities of Annamalai University, Annamalai Nagar, Tamilnadu, India, for the facilities provided to conduct the experiment in the steam laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Engineering for the research work.