Skip to main content
Log in

Distribution optimization of circulating water in air-cooled heat exchangers for a typical indirect dry cooling system on the basis of entransy dissipation

  • Article
  • Published:
Science China Technological Sciences Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The flow and heat transfer of air-cooled heat exchangers play important roles in the performance of indirect dry cooling systems in power plants, so it is of benefit to the design and operation of a typical indirect dry cooling system to optimize the thermo-flow characteristics of air-cooled heat exchangers. The entransy dissipation method is applied to the performance optimization of air-cooled heat exchangers in this paper. Two irreversible heat transfer processes in air-cooled heat exchangers, the heat transfer between circulating water and cooling air and the mixing of circulating water, are taken into account and analyzed by means of the entransy dissipation method. The total entransy dissipation rate, which connects the geometrical parameters of air-cooled heat exchanger sectors and the heat capacity rates of the fluids to the heat flow rate in every sector, is obtained. Based on the mathematical relation and the conditional extremum method, an optimization equation group is derived, by which the air-cooled heat exchanger with known air-side parameters is optimized, showing that the entransy dissipation based optimization approach can contribute to the distribution optimization of circulating water in air-cooled heat exchangers of a typical indirect dry cooling system.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Kroger D G. Air-Cooled Heat Exchangers and Cooling Towers: Thermal-Flow Performance Evaluation and Design. Pragati Maidan: Penwell Corporation, 2004

    Google Scholar 

  2. Wu X P, Yang L J, Du X Z, et al. Flow and heat transfer characteristics of indirect dry cooling system with horizontal heat exchanger A-frames at ambient winds. Int J Therm Sci, 2014, 79: 161–175

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Yang L J, Wu X P, Du X Z, et al. Dimensional characteristics of wind effects on the performance of indirect dry cooling system with vertically arranged heat exchanger bundles. Int J Heat Mass Tran, 2013, 67: 853–866

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Yang L J, Chen L, Du X Z, et al. Effects of ambient winds on the thermo-flow performances of indirect dry cooling system in a power plant. Int J Therm Sci, 2013, 64: 178–187

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Su M D, Tang G F, Fu S. Numerical simulation of fluid flow and thermal performance of a dry-cooling tower under cross wind condition. J Wind Eng Ind Aerod, 1999, 79: 289–306

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Wei Q D, Zhang B Y, Liu K Q, et al. A study of the unfavorable effects of wind on the cooling efficiency of dry cooling towers. J Wind Eng Ind Aerod, 1995, 54: 633–643

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Al-Waked R, Behnia M. The performance of natural draft dry cooling towers under crosswind: CFD study. Int J Energ Res, 2004, 28: 147–161

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Zhai Z, Fu S. Improving cooling efficiency of dry-cooling towers under cross-wind conditions by using wind-break methods. Appl Therm Eng, 2006, 26: 1008–1017

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Goodarzi M. A proposed stack configuration for dry cooling tower to improve cooling efficiency under crosswind. J Wind Eng Ind Aerod, 2010, 98: 858–863

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Goodarzi M, Ramezanpour R. Alternative geometry for cylindrical natural draft cooling tower with higher cooling efficiency under crosswind condition. Energ Convers Manage, 2014, 77: 243–249

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Guo Z Y, Zhu H Y, Liang X G. Entransy-a physical quantity describing heat transfer ability. Int J Heat Mass Tran, 2007, 50: 2545–2556

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  12. Chen Q, Ren J X, Meng J A. Field synergy equation for turbulent heat transfer and its application. Int J Heat Mass Tran, 2007, 50: 5334–5339

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  13. Chen Q, Zhu H Y, Pan N, et al. An alternative criterion in heat transfer optimization. P Roy Soc Lond A Mat, 2011, 467: 1012–1028

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  14. Cheng X T, Liang X G. Entransy flux of thermal radiation and its application to enclosures with opaque surfaces. Int J Heat Mass Tran, 2011, 54: 269–278

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  15. Chen L, Chen Q, Li Z, et al. Optimization for a heat exchanger couple based on the minimum thermal resistance principle. Int J Heat Mass Tran, 2009, 52: 4778–4784

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  16. Chen Q, Xu Y C. An entransy dissipation-based optimization principle for building central chilled water systems. Energy, 2012, 37: 571–579

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Xu Y C, Chen Q. An entransy dissipation-based method for global optimization of district heating networks. Energ Buildings, 2012, 48: 50–60

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Xu Y C, Chen Q. Minimization of mass for heat exchanger networks in spacecrafts based on the entransy dissipation theory. Int J Heat Mass Tran, 2012, 55: 5148–5156

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Yuan F, Chen Q. A global optimization method for evaporative cooling systems based on the entransy theory. Energy, 2012, 42: 181–191

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  20. Wang W H, Cheng X T, Liang X G, Entransy dissipation, entransy-dissipation-based thermal resistance and optimization of one-stream hybrid thermal network. Sci China Tech Sci, 2013, 56: 529–536

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Liu X B, Guo Z Y. Anovel method for heat exchanger analysis (in Chinese). Acta Phys Sin, 2009, 58: 4766–4771

    Google Scholar 

  22. Cheng X T, Zhang Q Z, Liang X G. Analyses of entransy dissipation, entropy generation and entransy-dissipation-based thermal resistance on heat exchanger optimization. Appl Therm Eng, 2012, 38: 31–39

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Wu X Z, Zhao J N. Approximate formulas of number of transfer unit of U shaped fin-tube heat exchangers (in Chinese). J Harbin Inst Tech, 2012, 44: 71–74

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  24. Yang L J, Jia S N, Pu Y D, et al. Numerical study on flow and heat transfer characteristics of finned tube bundles for air-cooled heat exchangers of indirect dry cooling systems in power plants (in Chinese). P CSEE, 2012, 32: 50–57

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to LiJun Yang.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Sun, J., Yuan, K., Yang, L. et al. Distribution optimization of circulating water in air-cooled heat exchangers for a typical indirect dry cooling system on the basis of entransy dissipation. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 58, 617–629 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-014-5762-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-014-5762-3

Keywords

Navigation