Abstract:

The circumferential inflow air on the bottom of a natural draft wet-cooling tower were studied under windless and crosswind conditions. The entire research was conducted in a closed lab with a thermal state cooling tower model. The research showed that the circumferential inlet wind was wellproportioned and axisymmetric under windless conditions, that is, the heat and mass transfer performance through fillings zone was also axisymmetric. The axisymmetric distribution  of circumferential inlet wind velocity was destroyed under crosswind conditions.This phenomenon was very obvious when environmental crosswind velocity was more than 0.2m/s. When the environmental wind velocity was about 0.5m/s, the circumferential inlet wind velocity in windward sidewas about 1.875 times the windless conditions, while the circumferential inlet windvelocity in leeward side was about 0.3 times the windless conditions. Thus, the environmental crosswind affected the airflow rate entering into the cooling tower, and then deteriorated the heat and mass transfer performance.

Key words: crosswind; wet cooling tower; air inlet; heat and mass transfer performance