Investigation of the effect of packing location on performance of closed wet cooling tower based on energy analysis

In this paper, the effect of packing location on thermal performance of Closed Wet Cooling Tower (CWCT) based on exergy analysis has been studied. The experimental study incorporates design, manufacture and testing of a modified counter flow forced draft CWCT prototype. The modification based on addition packing to the conventional CWCT. The variation of spray water temperature, air dry bulb temperature, air wet bulb temperature, enthalpy and relative humidity of air for different position along the tower are measured experimentally. Applying the exergy destruction method for the cooling tower; exergy destruction, exergy efficiency, exergy of water and air were calculated for two cases: CWCT with packing below the heat exchanger and CWCT with packing above the heat exchanger. It is highly important to analyze the exergy along the cooling tower height. Therefore, the exergy analysis of different elements along the height of the tower is carried out. Results show that the total exergy destruction of modified CWCT is higher when the heat exchanger is located above the packing at the highest point of the tower. (paper)