Abstract
Waste heat dispersion from power plants and heavy industries is always a major concern. Every industry needs a cheap source for cooling its necessary components, and water serves this purpose. This is due to ease of availability and high specific heat capacity of water. But after industrial use, the heated effluent is again discharged in the same water body from where it is taken. This not only disturbs the aquatic life but also affects the balance of the ecosystem. We sometimes forget that affecting one essential component of ecosystem will completely disturb the environment, since water is a necessary component out of three basic components of life (air, water and soil). This chapter presents the background of the thermal pollution, modelling approach and analysis methods. For primary analysis of thermal pollution, an analytical solution of two-dimensional thermal dispersion is discussed. Dispersion is considered over a surface with velocity in only one direction i.e. in the direction of the wind. A parabolic partial differential equation is solved analytically to predict temperature contours over a surface. Due to lack of adequate boundary condition, this solution is only capable of predicting far-field temperatures. For prediction of near-field temperatures, the same parabolic equation or a full three-dimensional energy and momentum equations can be solved numerically. A numerical problem formulation methodology is discussed for accurate prediction of thermal pollution. Finally, a scaling analysis is shown to develop an experimental model for proper validation of the numerical code and laboratory-scale experimental study.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Abbreviations
- A :
-
Constant of linearization of heat interaction with the atmosphere in (W)
- B :
-
Constant of linearization of heat interaction with the atmosphere in (W/K)
- C p :
-
Specific heat capacity of fluid (kJ/kgK)
- D x :
-
Thermal diffusivity in X-direction (m2/s)
- D y :
-
Thermal diffusivity in Y-direction (m2/s)
- D i :
-
Diffusion coefficient for heat (m2/s)
- D :
-
Characteristic discharge dimension (m)
- H w :
-
Height from the point of emission of effluent to the free surface (m)
- \(\tilde{k}\) :
-
Turbulent kinetic energy (m2/s2)
- q o :
-
Heat added by effluent (W)
- T :
-
Temperature (K)
- T 0 :
-
Initial temperature of effluent discharge (K)
- U :
-
Velocity of the fluid (m/s)
- \(\rho\) :
-
Density of water (kg/m3)
- \(\rho_{o}\) :
-
Overall density of the top layer of water (kg/m3)
- \(\Delta\) :
-
Variation
- \(\eta\) :
-
Y-axis distance
- \(\sigma\) :
-
X-axis distance
- \(\mu_{t}\) :
-
Eddy viscosity
- \(\epsilon\) :
-
Turbulent dissipation rate (m2/s3)
- \(\nabla\) :
-
Gradient
- w :
-
Fluid as water
- i :
-
Gridcounts in the X-direction
- j :
-
Gridcounts in the Y-direction
- e :
-
Effluent flow property
- a :
-
Ambient flow property
- m :
-
Model
- p :
-
Prototype
References
Ackers P (1969) Modeling of heated water discharges. Engineering aspects of thermal pollution, pp 177–212
Baldwin RC (1972) A dispersion model for heated effluent from an ocean outfall. University of Missouri, Missouri
Chen C, Liu H, Beardsley RC (2003) An unstructured grid, finite-volume, three-dimensional, primitive equations ocean model: application to coastal ocean and estuaries. J Atmos Ocean Technol 20(1):159–186
Cohen AS (2003) Paleolimnology: the history and evolution of lake systems. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Davidson MJ, Gaskin S, Wood IR (2002) A study of a buoyant axisymmetric jet in a small co-flow. J Hydraul Res 40(4):477–489
Fang T-H et al (2004) Hydrographical studies of waters adjacent to nuclear power plants I and II in Northern Taiwan. J Mar Sci Technol 12(5):364–371
Galperin B et al (1988) A quasi-equilibrium turbulent energy model for geophysical flows. J Atmos Sci 45(1):55–62
Hung T-C, Huang C-C, Shao K-T (1998) Ecological survey of coastal i water adjacent to nuclear power I plants in Taiwan. Chem Ecol 15(1–3):129–142
James RW (1966) Ocean Thermal Structure Forecasting. ASWEPS Manuel Series, Vol 5. U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office
Krishnakumar V, Sastry J, Swamy GN (1991) Implication of thermal discharges into the sea-a review. Indian J Environ Prot 11:3
Laws EA (2000) Aquatic pollution: an introductory text. Wiley, London
Mellor GL, Yamada T (1982) Development of a turbulence closure model for geophysical fluid problems. Rev Geophys 20(4):851–875
Muralidhar K, Biswas G (2005) Advanced engineering fluid mechanics Alpha Science Int’l Ltd
Nystrom JB, Hecker GE, Moy HC (1981) Heated discharge in an estuary: case study. J Hydraul Div Am Soc Civil Eng 107(11):1371–1406
Poppendieck D (2008) Wastewater Treatment: Current Performance. Available from: http://www2.humboldt.edu/arcatamarsh/currentperformance3.html
Punetha M, Roopchandani C, Banerjee J (2013) Analysis for dispersion of thermal effluent from thermonuclear power plant. In: Proceedings 40th national conference on fluid mechanics and fluid power, Hamirpur (India)
Punetha M, Thaker JP, Banerjee J (2014) experimental and numerical analysis of dispersion of heated effluent from power plants. In: Proceedings 5th international and 41th national conference on fluid mechanics and fluid power, Kanpur (India)
Sharp JJ (1972) Distorted modelling of density currents. In: Coastal engineering proceedings, pp 2339–2354
Shan H et al (2007) A Three-dimensional Bay/Estuary Model for Hydrodynamics and Salinity Transport. Mathematics Preprint Series, University of Texas Arlington, 2007(4)
Shah V et al (2017) Analysis of dispersion of heated effluent from power plant: a case study. Sādhanā, pp 1–18
Sinha SK, Sotiropoulos F, Odgaard AJ (1998) Three-dimensional numerical model for flow through natural rivers. J Hydraul Eng 124(1):13–24
Stilts J (2012) Report: Vermont Yankee thermal discharge into Connecticut River exceeds permit limits. Available from: http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/10/report_vermont_yankee_thermal.html
Wada A (1966) A study on phenomena of flow and thermal diffusion caused by outfall of cooling water. In: Proceedings 10th international conference on coastal engineering, Tokyo
Wiles PJ et al (2006) A novel technique for measuring the rate of turbulent dissipation in the marine environment. Geophys Res Lett 33, L21608. https://doi.org/10.1029/2006GL027050
Yu L, Zhu S-P (1993) Numerical simulation of discharged waste heat and contaminants into the south estuary of the Yangtze River. Math Comput Model 18(12):107–123
Zeller RW, Hoopes JA, Rohlich GA (1971) Heated surface jets in steady crosscurrent. J Hydraulics Div 97(9):1403–1426
Zeng P et al (2002) Transport of waste heat from a nuclear power plant into coastal water. Coast Eng 44(4):301–319
Zilitinkevich S et al (2013) A hierarchy of energy-and flux-budget (EFB) turbulence closure models for stably-stratified geophysical flows. Boundary-layer meteorology, pp 1–33
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Punetha, M. (2018). Thermal Pollution: Mathematical Modelling and Analysis. In: Gupta, T., Agarwal, A., Agarwal, R., Labhsetwar, N. (eds) Environmental Contaminants. Energy, Environment, and Sustainability. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7332-8_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7332-8_18
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-7331-1
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-7332-8
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)