Thermal performance analysis of heat exchanger for closed wet cooling tower using heat and mass transfer analogy

Abstract

In closed wet cooling towers, the heat transfer between the air and external tube surfaces can be composed of the sensible heat transfer and the latent heat transfer. The heat transfer coefficient can be obtained from the equation for external heat transfer of tube banks. According to experimental data, the mass transfer coefficient was affected by the air velocity and spray water flow rate. This study provides the correlation equation for mass transfer coefficient based on the analogy of the heat and mass transfer and the experimental data. The results from this correlation equation showed fairly good agreement with experimental data. The cooling capacity and thermal efficiency of the closed wet cooling tower were calculated from the correlation equation to analyze the performance of heat exchanger for the tower.