Study of the generation and emission of water drops in cooling towers. Póster

Abstract

An experimental prototype of a mechanical draft cooling tower has been set up to study the interaction of air and water in a drift eliminators. It consists on a prismatic structure; an airstream is introduced from the bottom of the tower; and a water circuit injects water inside the tower, through one of the plates of the drift eliminator, forming a water film simulating the films formed by the atomization of water in real towers. 2D and 3D numerical models have been developed in order to simulate the behavior of air and water inside the cooling tower and compare these results with experimental data. The main objective of this work is to describe the interaction between the water film and the air flow on the plates of the drift eliminator and to determine the operating conditions for the drift eliminator to act itself as a droplet generator. This means to determine the critical values for the air flow to make water droplets, originated from the eliminator plates, to be drifted by the airstream to outside “breakthrough”.