IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/rensus/v79y2017icp618-637.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A review on the performance evaluation of natural draft dry cooling towers and possible improvements via inlet air spray cooling

Author

Listed:
  • Sun, Yubiao
  • Guan, Zhiqiang
  • Hooman, Kamel

Abstract

Concentrating solar power (CSP) plants make use of the renewable and inexhaustible solar energy to produce electricity. Limited by the scarce water resources, CSP plants built in arid areas choose Natural Draft Dry Cooling Tower (NDDCT) to remove waste heat. However, NDDCT suffers from low efficiency in hot summer days. To resolve this problem, inlet air spray-cooling is introduced to improve the performance of NDDCT. In the first part of this paper, the research progress focused on both the theoretical and experimental studies on NDDCT are summarized. Then, in the second part, the spray cooling system consisting of various kinds of spray nozzles are described. Various nozzles produce different spray patterns such as flat-fan, hollow cone, full cone and solid jet. These spray patterns are characterized by flow rate, pressure, mean droplet size and droplet size distribution. Furthermore, the mathematical models correlating the cooling tower performance with the droplet evaporation process are used to predict the spray cooling performance and are summarized here. Finally, predictive results are presented to evaluate the performance of the pre-cooling system. The results illustrate that the inlet air pre-cooling would improve the efficiency of NDDCT and thus reduce power generation loss under high-ambient air temperature conditions. More research should be conducted to develop a practical NDDCT-based spray cooling system for industrial applications.

Suggested Citation

  • Sun, Yubiao & Guan, Zhiqiang & Hooman, Kamel, 2017. "A review on the performance evaluation of natural draft dry cooling towers and possible improvements via inlet air spray cooling," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 618-637.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:79:y:2017:i:c:p:618-637
    DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2017.05.151
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032117307943
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.rser.2017.05.151?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ecker, J.G. & Wiebking, R.D., 1978. "Optimal design of a dry-type natural-draft cooling tower by geometric programming," LIDAM Reprints CORE 355, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sun, Yubiao & Alkhedhair, Abdullah M. & Guan, Zhiqiang & Hooman, Kamel, 2018. "Numerical and experimental study on the spray characteristics of full-cone pressure swirl atomizers," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 678-692.
    2. Wu, Tao & Ge, Zhihua & Yang, Lijun & Du, Xiaoze, 2019. "Transient behavior of the cold end system in an indirect dry cooling thermal power plant under varying operating conditions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 1202-1212.
    3. Wu, Tao & Ge, Zhihua & Yang, Lijun & Du, Xiaoze, 2019. "Modeling the performance of the indirect dry cooling system in a thermal power generating unit under variable ambient conditions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 625-636.
    4. Sun, Yubiao & Guan, Zhiqiang & Gurgenci, Hal & Wang, Jianyong & Dong, Peixin & Hooman, Kamel, 2019. "Spray cooling system design and optimization for cooling performance enhancement of natural draft dry cooling tower in concentrated solar power plants," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 273-284.
    5. GaneshKumar, Poongavanam & Sivalingam, VinothKumar & Vigneswaran, V.S. & Ramalingam, Velraj & Seong Cheol, Kim & Vanaraj, Ramkumar, 2024. "Spray cooling for hydrogen vehicle, electronic devices, solar and building (low temperature) applications: A state-of-art review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 189(PA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Han-Lin Li & Hao-Chun Lu, 2009. "Global Optimization for Generalized Geometric Programs with Mixed Free-Sign Variables," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 57(3), pages 701-713, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:79:y:2017:i:c:p:618-637. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.