139

Thermal performance analysis

of a closed wet cooling tower
V D Papaefthimiou , T C Zannis, and E D Rogdakis
Laboratory of Applied Thermodynamics, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Athens, Greece

The manuscript was received on 27 December 2006 and was accepted after revision for publication on 23 May 2007.
DOI: 10.1243/09544089JPME119

Abstract: A detailed model was developed and employed to examine the thermal performance of
a closed wet cooling tower. The model is capable of predicting the variation of air thermodynamic
properties, sprayed and serpentine water temperature as well as heat transfer rates exchanged
between air and falling water stream inside the indirect wet cooling tower. The reliability of simu-
lations was tested against experimental data obtained from the literature. A parametric study was
conducted to evaluate the thermal behaviour of the indirect cooling tower under various air mass
owrates, serpentine water mass owrates and inlet temperatures. The results of the theoretical
investigation revealed an increase in cooling capacity and percentage loss of sprayed water due
to evaporation, with increasing air mass owrate. On the other hand, the increase of serpentine
water mass owrate resulted in slight increase in the overall temperature reduction of serpentine
water. The effect of variable serpentine water inlet temperature on thermal performance of the
indirect wet cooling tower was insignicant compared to other cases.

Keywords: closed wet cooling tower, serpentine water, sprayed water, thermal performance

1 INTRODUCTION same heat transfer increasing thus, the cost of the

In a closed wet cooling tower, heat is transferred from
hot water or other uid, circulating inside a serpentine
to a water lm, which is formed on the tube surface
and then, to a rising air stream. Indirect cooling tow-
ers can substitute cooling systems comprised of tube
heat exchanger and cooling tower. This is one of the
reasons why evaporative coolers are used in industrial
processes and in air-conditioning systems to reject
heat to the surrounding environment. Furthermore,
in closed cooling towers the water owing into the
tube is protected from various contaminations lim-
iting thus, the vulnerability of inner tube surface to
corrosion. However, a higher exchange area is needed
compared to direct-contact wet cooling towers for the
Corresponding author: Laboratory of Applied Thermodynamics,
Thermal Engineering Section, School of Mechanical Engineer-
ing, National Technical University of Athens, Heroon Polytech-
niou Street 9, Zografou Campus, Athens 15780, Greece. email:
vpapaeft@central.ntua.gr
installation.
Theoretical modelling of closed wet cooling tower is
complicated because cooling water, process uid, and
air stream, which are owing in different directions,
interact with each other through heat and mass trans-
fer processes.Various attempts with different degree of
accuracy have been made since the late 1930s for mod-
elling the combined heat and mass transfer phenom-
ena taking place inside an evaporative cooler [13].
A constant temperature approximation for injected
cooling water was often assumed. However, Parker and
Treybal [4] discovered that this approximation lead
to mathematical inconsistencies, which gave erro-
neous results. In fact, Finlay and Grant [5] showed
that constant temperature assumption may lead to
30 per cent error in large tube banks. Leidenfrost and
Korenic [6] developed a methodology similar to the
one of Parker and Treybal [4] with which they found
that accurate prediction of performance characteris-
tics of an evaporative cooler can be attained through
iterative procedures. In addition, various researchers
suggested different methods for dimensioning evap-
orative coolers [7, 8]. Finlay and Grant [9] suggested

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140 V D Papaefthimiou, T C Zannis, and E D Rogdakis

a simplied model for describing the mass transfer seriously affected by the change of serpentine water
process inside an evaporative cooler, which was based inlet temperature.
on the expression of vapour pressure of saturated
moist air as linear function of temperature.
Dreyer [10] presented different mathematical mod- 2 MODEL DESCRIPTION
els for the thermal evaluation of evaporative cool-
ers and condensers [4, 7, 1114]. Analytical models 2.1 General outline
[1013, 15, 16] are based on the implementation of A comprehensive mathematical model based on the
energy and mass conservation laws making various conservation laws for energy and mass is used to
assumptions concerning the spayed water tempera- describe the coupled heat and mass transfer processes
ture distribution and the sprayed water loss due to taking place inside an indirect wet cooling tower. A rep-
evaporation. Aiming to a more realistic description resentative description of the closed wet cooling tower
of the transport phenomena taking place inside an considered in the present analysis is illustrated in
evaporative cooler, sophisticated mathematical mod- Fig. 1. The model was implemented for an indirect wet
els [17, 18] have been developed and CFD packages cooling tower having a bank of 16 31 plain tubes.
have been used [1921], which provide predictions The length of tube bundle is 0.888 m. The tube length
of the temperature and ow eld inside the cooling is 0.913 m and the outer and the inner tube diam-
tower. Though that these models are more detailed and eter are 0.0191 and 0.0150 m, respectively. The ratio
informative compared with analytical models, they of pitch to outside tube diameter is 1.5. The afore-
are time-consuming and thus, cannot provide perfor- mentioned geometrical specications of the closed
mance predictions for large periods of time. However, wet cooling tower used herein were taken from ref-
such simulations are necessary when designing large erence [23]. Model development was based on the
power installations or cogeneration systems, since it following assumptions.
is of utmost importance to have a quick and reli-
able estimation of the annual amount of water lost 1. The heat and mass transfer processes occur under
due to evaporation in order to calculate the annual steady-state conditions, in a direction perpendicu-
operational cost of the installation. lar to the tower walls.
Recently, the present research group has developed 2. The specic heat capacity of sprayed water, ser-
a detailed thermodynamic model and used it to assess pentine water, and dry air are constant in the
the thermal performance of a wet cooling tower [22]. temperature range considered.
The success of this application has resulted in the uti- 3. The specic enthalpy of dry air, water, and serpen-
lization of the principles of thermodynamics for devel- tine water is equal to zero at 0 C.
oping a computational model. The newly-developed 4. Owing to the small temperature differences at
model is used to evaluate the thermal behaviour which the process occurs heat transferred by
of an indirect wet cooling tower. Energy and mass radiation is not taken into account.
conservation laws are employed in conjunction with
semiempirical correlations to describe the combined
heat and mass transfer phenomena taking place inside
the closed wet cooling tower. Specically, the model
is used to examine the effect of air mass owrate,
serpentine water mass owrate, and inlet tempera-
ture on the variation of the thermodynamic state of
moist air inside the cooler and on its cooling capacity
and thermal efciency. Comparison of the simulations
with experimental results obtained from the litera-
ture was made to secure the predictive ability of the
model. The analysis of the theoretical results revealed
that the increase of the air mass owrate results in
increase of the cooling capacity and thermal efciency
of the indirect wet cooling tower. However, in this
case the penalty in sprayed water loss due to evapo-
ration is increased. On the other hand, the increase
of serpentine water mass owrate results in decrease
of its overall temperature reduction and decrease of
the thermal efciency of the process. The thermal
performance of the closed wet cooling tower is not Fig. 1 Schematic view of the closed wet cooling tower

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 Thermal performance analysis of a closed wet cooling tower 141

5. At the interfacial surface air reaches the tempera- The specic enthalpy of moist air is
ture of water and its humidity corresponds to the
state of equilibrium. ha = cpa Ta + W (cps
sat
Ta +
hw ) (6)
6. The thermal resistance between the bulk and the
interface of falling water lm is negligible. Differentiation of above relationship with respect to
7. Water and air are in counter-ow. air temperature Ta provides

dha = cpa dTa + dW (cps

sat
Ta +
hw ) + Wcps
sat
dTa (7)
2.2 Mathematical treatment
The development of the analytical model is based on Hence, the rate of change of dry bulb air temperature
the implementation of energy balance for each one along wetted tube surface is
of the working uids taking part in the process. The

sat
implementation of the energy balance for the gaseous dTa aLA cps dW (Tw Ta )
= + (8)
phase (refer to Fig. 2) implies that sensible and latent dA ma dA cpm
heat is exchanged between the falling water lm and
the air stream resulting in the change of moist air where cpm is the specic heat capacity of moist air,
enthalpy as follows which is dened as

ma dha = dQS + dQL (1) cpm = cpa + Wcsat

ps (9)

Above relation can be rewritten in the following form The term (dW /dA) in equation (8) corresponds to the
evaporated water mass per unit heat exchange area
ma ha + dQS + dQL = (ha + dha )ma (2) at the watervapour interface and it is given by the
following expression
The sensible load exchanged between moist air and
dW
sprayed water lm is = (W sat (Tw ) Wa ) (10)
dA ma
dQS = aLA (Tw Ta )dA (3)
The saturation humidity ratio of air W sat is calcu-
lated using the following mathematical formula
The latent load carried to the air stream due to water
evaporation is sat
pws (Tw )
W sat (Tw ) = 0.622 (11)
pa pws sat (T )
w
dQL = dmw his (4)
The denition of air humidity ratio is employed to
where his is the specic enthalpy of saturated moist derive the rate of change of evaporated sprayed water
air evaluated at airwater interface temperature mass per unit of heat exchange area as follows
dened as
mw dmw d(ma W ) dmw
W = = = =
his = cps
sat
Tw +
hw (5) ma dA dA dA
dW
= ma (12)
dA
The temperature difference between the recirculating
water and the sprayed water results in transfer of
sensible heat load to the falling lm. Furthermore,
the sprayed water mass is progressively decreased
because of the evaporation process and the vaporized
mass fraction is transferred to the rising air stream.
Hence, the application of the energy balance between
serpentine water and falling water lm provides

mw hw = (mw + dmw )(hw + dhw ) + dQS

+ dQL dQf (13)
Fig. 2 Representative schematic description of the
energy contribution of sprayed water and air The second-order differential term dmw dhw is
stream in a counter-ow closed wet cooling tower signicantly lower compared with the other terms

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142 V D Papaefthimiou, T C Zannis, and E D Rogdakis

and thus, it can be neglected from the previous 2.3 Heat and mass transfer coefcients
relationship. Hence, equation (13) can be written as
follows The heat transfer coefcient between falling water
lm and air stream (Le = 1) is given by the following
mw dhw = (dmw hw + dQS + dQL dQf ) (14) relation [7, 11, 25, 26]

Above relation can be rewritten by taking into account LA = cpm (20)

equation (12)

dTw 1 dW where is the mass transfer coefcient, which is
= aLA (Tw Ta ) + ma
dA mw c pw dA calculated as follows

(cps
sat
Ta + cpw Tw +
hw ) + U (Tw Tf ) = 6.0 108 (Rea )0.9 (Rew )0.15 (Do )1.6 (21)
(15)
and Rea , Rew are the Reynolds numbers of the air and
The rejection of sensible heat from the circulating the sprayed water stream, respectively
water to the falling water lm results in its temperature
fall as shown in the following relations Ga D o Gw Do
Rea = , Rew = ,
dQf = mf cpf dTf and dQf = U dA(Tf Tw ) (16) a w
mw ma
Combining above relations the rate of change of Gw = , and Ga = (22)
Ac Ac
cooled water temperature along wetted tube area is
derived The minimum cross-sectional area for ow Ac in
dTf U (Tw Tf ) equation (22) is calculated as follows
= (17)
dA mf cpf

L
Finally, a system of four ordinary differential equations Ac = Do Ml (23)
M
is constituted


dTa aLA sat
cps dW (Tw Ta ) where L is the length of tube bundle, M is the number
= + of row tubes, and l is the tube length.
dA ma dA cpm
 The overall heat transfer coefcient U between cir-
dTw 1 dW culating water, tube wall, and water lm is calculated
= aLA (Tw Ta ) + ma
dA mw c pw dA by the following formula
  
cps Ta + cpw Tw +
hw + U (Tw Tf )
sat
1
Ro 1 Ro Ro 1
U= + ln + (24)
U (Tw Tf ) Ri h f k Ri TL
dTf dA =
mf cpf
dW  sat where the convection heat transfer coefcient of
= W (Tw ) Wa circulating water hf is given by the DittusBoelter
dA ma
relation
dmw dW
= ma

dA dA
f Prf
0.023 Re0.8 0.3
(18) hf = (25)
Di
with the following boundary conditions

(Ta )Z =0 = Ta0 According to the literature [4, 11], the heat transfer
coefcient between the tube and the water lm aTL is
(Tw )Z =L = Tw0 calculated by the following expression
(Tf )Z =L = Tf0

1/3
(W )Z =0 = W0 
TL = 704(1.39 + 0.022Tw ) (26)
Do
(mw )Z =L = mw0
(19)
where  is a parameter dened as
A variable-step non-stiff method (RungeKutta 5(4))
was used to numerically solve the boundary-value mw
= (27)
problem [24]. 4Ml

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 Thermal performance analysis of a closed wet cooling tower 143

3 OVERVIEW OF THE PARAMETRIC STUDY
An extensive theoretical investigation was conducted
to examine the effect of various operating parameters
on the thermal performance of the evaporative cooling
tower. Hence, the following cases were considered.
1. Variable inlet air mass owrate ma,i : The efciency
of the evaporation process depends on the rela-
tive velocity of the water/air stream. Specically,
the residence time of the falling water lm on the
tubes is insufcient for high air velocities and as
a result the evaporation process is uncompleted.
Furthermore, it has been implied that for velocities
higher than a critical value, the water droplets are
entrained by the air stream with detrimental effects
on the operation of the cooling device. Hence,
two different air mass owrates were considered
namely 1.0 and 4.0 kg/s beyond the reference case
(2.0 kg/s). The following inlet conditions constitute
the reference case of the closed wet cooling tower
operation:
(a) sprayed water temperature: Tw,i = 20 C;
(b) sprayed water mass owrate: mw,i = 1.85 kg/s;
(c) air massow rate: ma,i = 2.0 kg/s;
(d) serpentine water temperature: Tf ,i = 35 C;
(e) serpentine water mass owrate: mf ,i = 2.67 kg/s.
The purpose is to scrutinize the effect on the varia-
tion of the thermodynamic parameters of the moist
air inside the evaporative cooler, on the thermal
performance and the effectiveness of the process.
2. Variable inlet temperature Tf ,i of circulating water
and its water mass owrate mf ,i : water evaporation
may be an efcient way to cool warm water com-
ing from the heat exchangers of an air-conditioning
system after exchanging heat with hot air. Hence,
the objective here is to investigate thoroughly this
case by examining the changes in the thermal
behaviour and process efciency from the varia-
tion of chilled water inlet temperature and then,
from the corresponding change of the circulating
water mass owrate. This will contribute on the
better understanding regarding suitability of such
cooling devices in space air-conditioning systems.
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Experimental validation
Before proceeding to the examination of the effect of
various operating parameters on the thermal perfor-
mance of the closed wet cooling tower, it is of utmost
importance to validate the predictive ability of the pro-
posed model. For this reason, in Fig. 3 a comparison
is made between predicted and experimental results
obtained from reference [23] for dry bulb air tem-
perature, falling water lm temperature and cooled
water temperature for two different temperature
approaches. The temperature approach is dened as
the difference between the outlet wet bulb air tem-
perature Twb,o and the inlet dry bulb temperature Ta,i
and thus, simulations were conducted in order the
temperature approach to be constant at two differ-
ent cases. The inlet conditions considered to make
these simulations are given in Table 1. In the case of
dry bulb temperature, measured data for the variation
of this value inside the cooling tower were unavail-
able and for this reason, the comparison is limited
to the inlet and outlet conditions. A very good coin-
cidence between calculated and measured results at
the entrance and the exit of the cooler is evidenced

Fig. 3 Effect of temperature approach (Twb,o Tdb,i ) on the variation of dry bulb air temperature,
sprayed water and cooled water inside the closed wet cooling tower. Theoretical results
are given as function of the wetted tube surface and are contrasted with corresponding
experimental data obtained from reference [23]

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144 V D Papaefthimiou, T C Zannis, and E D Rogdakis
Table 1 Inlet conditions considered for conducting the
experimental validation
Parameter ( C) Twb,o Tdb,i = 5.1 C Twb,o Tdb,i = 8.3 C
Tdb,i 10 8.5
Twb,i 8.45 7.0
Tw,i 12.8 13.6
Tf ,i 15.6 18
for all the parameters shown in Fig. 3 in both cases of
temperature approach. Furthermore, a close exami-
nation of the corresponding curves for sprayed water
and cooled water temperature reveals that the model
predicts successfully not only the boundary values for
these two parameters but also their variation during
the process. The overall relative error between calcu-
lated and experimental results was less than 5 per cent
for all cases considered. This enhances our condence
on the reliability of the simulations, which will be
presented herein.
As observed, the temperature of the serpentine
water is decreased and the rate of decrease is more
intense during the initial stages of the evaporation pro-
cess (up to 7.5 m2 ) whereas, for higher values of wetted
tube surface the slope of reduction is constant. In addi-
tion, a slight increase of sprayed water temperature is
evidenced for values of heat exchange area up to 7.5 m2
being in accordance with the corresponding decrease
of serpentine water temperature in the same surface
range. For values of tube surface higher than 7.5 m2 the
temperature of the sprayed water is decreased because
of the evaporation of a fraction of the falling water
lm mass, which is transferred as latent load to the
surrounding air. As a consequence the temperature of
sprayed water at the tower exit is almost the same with
the one at the entrance. Finally, an increase of dry bulb
air temperature is observed because of the absorption
of sensible and latent heat loads from the falling water
lm during the evaporation process.
4.2 Effect of air mass owrate
The sensitivity of the variation of air temperature
and humidity ratio to the change of air stream mass
owrate is displayed in Figs 4(a) and (b), respectively.
An increase of dry bulb air temperature with increas-
ing wetted tube surface is observed for low (1 kg/s) and
moderate (2 kg/s) values of air mass owrate. In the
case of ma,i = 4 kg/s, the dry bulb temperature is ini-
tially curtailed for values of tube surface up to 7.5 m2
and then, increases progressively. The increase at all
cases is curtailed near the air outlet from the cooling
tower. The highest overall increase of dry bulb tem-
perature is observed for the higher air mass owrate
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(4 kg/s). The air humidity ratio increases with increas-
ing wetted tube surface at all cases of air mass owrate.
The increase of air mass owrate results in decrease
of the values of humidity ratio inside the cooling
tower. Lower outlet values of dry bulb temperature and
humidity ratio are observed with increasing air mass
owrate.
Examination of the effect of air mass owrate on the
evolution of serpentine water temperature, sprayed
water temperature and relative change of sprayed
water mass is facilitated through Figs 4(c) to (e). The
increase of the air inlet mass intensies the reduction
rate of serpentine water temperature. Hence, the low-
est outlet serpentine water temperature is witnessed
in the case of high air stream owrate (ma,i = 4 kg/s).
An abrupt increase of sprayed water temperature is
observed for tube surface up to 7.5 m2 while for higher
values of tube surface, the falling water tempera-
ture is curtailed. This limits the overall temperature
increase of sprayed water. The highest overall increase
of sprayed water temperature is observed in the case
of low air inlet mass (1 kg/s). It must be noted that the
difference of the sprayed water temperature between
the entrance and the exit of the cooling tower depends
on the amount of the sprayed water lost because of
evaporation. The last depends strongly on the rela-
tive velocity of falling water lm with respect to the air
stream. Hence, there is an optimum ratio of sprayed
water to air mass owrate, which provides a certain
degree of falling water evaporation and compels water
to enter and leave cooling tower with almost the same
temperature. Deviations in air or water mass owrate
from the optimum values results in differences of
water temperature between the entrance and the exit
of the cooling tower.
The variation of the percentage loss of sprayed water
mass inside the closed wet cooling tower with air
mass owrate is shown in Fig. 4(e). As evidenced, the
increase of air mass owrate intensies the reduction
of sprayed water mass because of evaporation. Hence,
the highest overall percentage loss of sprayed water is
observed in the case of high air mass owrate (4 kg/s).
The curtailment of dry bulb temperature and
humidity ratio, which is evidenced close to the exit
of the tower, can be explained as follows: The air
temperature becomes higher than the falling water
lm temperature and the air humidity ratio higher
than the saturation humidity ratio at the sprayed water
temperature. Hence, heat is rejected from the air to
the falling water stream both as sensible and latent
load.
The high gradients of sprayed water temperature
increase and serpentine water temperature reduction,
which are observed up to 7.5 m2 of wetted tube
surface, are attributed to the amplication of the
evaporation process because of the high temper-
ature difference between air and sprayed water
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 Thermal performance analysis of a closed wet cooling tower 145

Fig. 4 Effect of air mass owrate on the variation of (a) dry bulb temperature, (b) humidity ratio,
(c) sprayed water temperature, (d) serpentine water temperature, and (e) relative change of
sprayed water mass inside the indirect wet cooling tower

stream and the high afnity of air for water vapour water and subsequently, to the cooling capacity of
absorption. the closed wet cooling tower. Increase of the thermal
The increase of air mass results in the increase efciency is observed also with increasing air mass
of the overall temperature reduction of serpentine owrate.

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146 V D Papaefthimiou, T C Zannis, and E D Rogdakis

Fig. 5 Effect of serpentine water inlet temperature on the variation of (a) dry bulb temperature,
(b) humidity ratio, (c) sprayed water temperature, (d) serpentine water temperature, and (e)
relative change of sprayed water mass inside the closed wet cooling tower

4.3 Effect of inlet temperature of serpentine water ratio is shown in Figs 5(a) and (b). The increase of
serpentine water inlet temperature results in increase
The inuence of cooled water inlet temperature on the of in-tower and outlet values dry bulb temperature and
variation of dry bulb air temperature and humidity humidity ratio. For moderate values of chilled water

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 Thermal performance analysis of a closed wet cooling tower 147

Fig. 6 Effect of serpentine water mass owrate on the variation of (a) dry bulb temperature, (b)
humidity ratio, (c) sprayed water temperature, (d) serpentine water temperature, and (e)
relative change of sprayed water mass inside the closed wet cooling tower

inlet temperature (30 C), the overall change of dry of decrease of cooled water temperature is amplied
bulb temperature is almost insignicant whereas for with increasing inlet temperature. However, the higher
pertinent low values (25 C), the air stream is cooled up outlet temperatures of chilled water are witnessed in
to almost 10 per cent. As observed in Fig. 5(c), the rate the case of high inlet temperature (35 C).

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148 V D Papaefthimiou, T C Zannis, and E D Rogdakis
According to Fig. 5(d), the rate of increase of sprayed
water temperature is enhanced with increasing cir-
culating water inlet temperature for values of wetted
surface up to 7.5 m2 whereas for higher tube surfaces,
the sprayed water temperature is curtailed at all cases
of cooled water inlet temperature. Hence, the highest
peak and outlet temperature of falling water stream
is observed for highest inlet temperature of circulat-
ing water (35 C). In the latter case, the highest overall
increase of falling water lm is evidenced.
As observed from Fig. 5(e), the rate of change of
sprayed water mass owrate is similar for the three
cooled water inlet temperatures for values of wetted
tube surface up to 12.5 m2 . However, for higher val-
ues of tube surface the reduction rate of sprayed water
mass is amplied with increasing cooled water tem-
perature. Thus, the highest overall percentage loss of
sprayed water mass is observed for the highest inlet
temperature of circulating water.
The variations of sprayed water temperature, circu-
lating water temperature and percentage reduction
of falling water mass, which were observed in the
case of Tf ,i = 25 C, may provide an explanation to
the aforementioned cooling of the air stream. Specif-
ically, the phenomenon of evaporative cooling can
be attributed to the relatively low temperature differ-
ence between air stream and circulating water at the
beginning of the process. In this case, a considerable
limitation of the sensible heat load, which is partially
transferred from the serpentine water to the sprayed
water and then, to the air stream, is conducted. When
the inlet temperature of circulating water is high
(35 C), the sensible fraction of heat load carried to the
air stream overwhelms its heat rejection, which is nec-
essary for the evaporation of cooling water. However,
in the specic case, the sensible portion is negligible
and thus, the air stream is cooled and humidied
because of the watervapour absorption.
Furthermore, the increase of cooled water inlet tem-
perature results in the slight increase of cooled water
temperature fall. Overall, the variation of thermal ef-
ciency and cooling capacity with increasing circulating
water inlet temperature is inconsiderable.
4.4 Effect of serpentine water mass owrate
The inuence of variable recirculating water mass on
the variation of dry bulb air temperature and humidity
ratio is presented in Figs 6(a) and (b). As observed, the
increase of chilled water mass results in the increase
of dry bulb temperatures and humidity ratio inside
the closed wet cooling tower and at the tower out-
let. The dry bulb temperature and humidity ratio are
curtailed close to exit of the cooler. For low values of
chilled water mass (1.34 kg/s), the dry bulb tempera-
ture is initially curtailed and then, increases slightly
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resulting thus, to an overall cooling of the air stream.
According to Figs 6(c) and (d), the increase of circu-
lating water mass results in higher sprayed water and
cooled water temperatures either inside the tower or
at its exit. As shown in Fig. 6(e), the highest overall per-
centage reduction of sprayed water mass is observed
for the highest value of processed water mass owrate.
In addition, decrease of the total temperature reduc-
tion of cooled water temperature and the thermal
efciency of the evaporative cooling tower is observed
with increasing chilled water mass owrate.
5 CONCLUSIONS
A detailed model was developed and used to simulate
the processes taking place inside a closed wet cooling
tower and mainly, to investigate the effect of vari-
ous operating parameters on its thermal behaviour.
The reliability of model predictions was tested against
experimental results obtained from the literature and
the suggested model was found capable of predicting
the thermal performance of a closed wet cooling tower
with sufcient accuracy. This facilitated the exami-
nation of the effect of air mass owrate, serpentine
water temperature, and mass owrate on the evolu-
tion of the thermodynamic characteristics of the air
stream, sprayed water, and serpentine water as well as
on the overall performance and efciency characteris-
tics of the closed wet cooling tower. The evaluation of
the theoretical results resulted in the derivation of the
following conclusions.
1. The increase of air mass owrate results in:
(a) reduction of dry bulb temperature and
humidity ratio;
(b) decrease of the overall temperature fall of
sprayed water;
(c) increase of percentage losses of sprayed water
mass because of evaporation;
(d) increase of the overall temperature reduction of
serpentine water (cooling capacity).
2. The increase of inlet temperature of serpentine
water results in:
(a) increase of dry bulb temperature and humidity
ratio;
(b) increase of overall sprayed water temperature;
(c) increase of the total amount of vaporized
sprayed water mass;
(d) small increase of the cooling capacity of indi-
rect wet cooling tower.
3. The increase of serpentine water mass owrate
results in:
(a) increase of dry bulb temperature and humidity
ratio;
JPME119 IMechE 2007
 Thermal performance analysis of a closed wet cooling tower
(b) increase of the overall sprayed water tempera-
ture and percentage losses because of evapora-
tion;
(c) decrease of the overall temperature reduction
of serpentine water.
In general, the highest temperature fall of serpen-
tine water (i.e. increase of cooling capacity) can be
attained with increasing air mass owrate. In other
words, less heat exchange area and thus, a lower con-
structional cost is required for achieving a certain
temperature fall of serpentine water. However, this
cannot be done without exacerbating the penalty in
sprayed water losses. Promising results concerning
simultaneous cooling of the air stream and the serpen-
tine water can be obtained when the inlet temperature
of the process uid is close to the inlet temperature of
air and falling water lm. However, these effects would
be preserved if the cooling water sink was supplied
with additional water mass to ensure constant inlet
temperature of sprayed water.
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APPENDIX
Notation
aLA water to air heat transfer coefcient
(W/m2 / C)
aTL tube to water lm heat transfer coef-
cient (W/m2 / C)
A wetted tube surface (m2 )
Ac minimum cross-sectional area for
ow on the air side (m2 )
Proc. IMechE Vol. 221 Part E: J. Process Mechanical Engineering
150 V D Papaefthimiou, T C Zannis, and E D Rogdakis

cpa specic heat at constant pressure of Tw sprayed water temperature ( C)

dry air (J/kg/K) U overall heat transfer coefcient of
cpm specic heat of moist air (J/kg/K) falling water lm (W/m2 / C)
sat
cps specic heat of saturated steam W air humidity ratio (kg/kgda )
(J/kg/K) W sat saturation humidity ratio of moist air
cpw specic heat of water (J/kg/K) (kgw /kg da )
cpf specic heat of process uid (J/kg/K) Z tower height (m)
D tube diameter (m)
mass transfer coefcient (kg/m2 /s)
G air mass velocity (m/s)
 parameter dened as mw /4Ml
ha specic enthalpy of moist air (J/kg)
(kg/m/s)
hf convection heat transfer coefcient of

hw latent heat of vaporization for water
process uid (W/m2 / C)
(J kg1 )
his specic enthalpy of saturated moist
thermal conductivity of water
air evaluated at airwater interface
(W/m/ C)
temperature (J/kg)
dynamic viscosity (kg/m/s)
hw specic enthalpy of water (J/kg)
k tube thermal conductivity (W/m/ C)
l tube length (m) Subscripts
L length of tube bundle (m) a air
Le Lewis number c coolant
ma air mass owrate (kg/s) db dry bulb
mf process uid mass owrate (kg/s) f process uid
mw sprayed water mass owrate (kg/s) i inner
M number of tubes in a row is steam at the interface
n thermal efciency L latent
pa moist air pressure (Pa) LA liquid to air
sat
pws saturation pressure of moist air (Pa) m airsteam (mixture)
Pr Prandtl number o outer
Qf process uid heat owrate (W) s steam
QL latent heat owrate (W) sat saturated
QS sensible heat owrate (W) S sensible
R tube radius (m) TL tube to liquid
Re Reynolds number w water
RH relative humidity ws watervapour
Ta air temperature ( C) wb wet bulb
Tf process uid temperature ( C) w, s saturated steam

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