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Desirable effects of cutting grooves on inner side of small cooling tower on reduction in ground level pollutant concentration

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Journal of the Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The pollutant dispersion from a small cooling tower is numerically investigated in the current study. The behavior of exhaust plume from a grooved cooling tower is studied to control the dispersion of pollutant by swirling the plume. The pollutant concentration, i.e., mass of pollutant per unit mass of the mixture, and the plume rise, i.e., the geometric loci of the highest pollutant concentration points at each flow cross sections downstream of cooling tower, are investigated as significant parameters in the problem of pollutant dispersion from sources of air pollution. The various ways by which the counter-rotating vortex pair as well as swirling plume affect the behavior of outflow from source of air pollution are investigated. An innovative structure for inner side of cooling tower by cutting the angular grooves is proposed in this article for reduction in pollutant concentration on the ground level and moving the plume rise to the higher altitude. The results indicate that the minimum value of pollutant concentration on the ground level is obtained by applying parallel grooves with respect to the axis of the cooling tower and the plume rise occurs in a higher altitude by increasing in the angle of the grooves. The physics of the outflow from the tower is investigated to examine the effects of the grooves angle on the path of plume and dispersion of pollutant.

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Abbreviations

D :

Diameter of the cylinder (m)

ρ :

Fluid density (kg/m3)

ρ 0 :

Source density (kg/m3)

ρ a :

Ambient density (kg/m3)

u i :

Velocity in the xi direction (m/s)

\(\overline{{u_{i} }}\) :

Mean velocity in the xi direction (m/s)

p :

Fluid pressure (Pa)

μ :

Fluid viscosity (kg/m s)

g :

Gravitational acceleration (m/s2)

β :

Thermal expansion coefficient (1/K)

T :

Fluid temperature (K)

h :

Enthalpy of fluid (J/kg)

K :

Thermal conductivity of fluid (W/m K)

\(J_{i}\) :

Diffusion flux of the ith chemical species (m2/s)

C i :

Concentration of the ith species

R i :

Source term due to the chemical reaction

k :

Turbulence kinetic energy (m2/s2)

ε :

Dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy (m2/s3)

μ t :

Turbulent viscosity (m2/s)

G k :

Generation of turbulence kinetic energy due to the mean velocity gradient (W/m3)

G b :

Generation of turbulence kinetic energy due to the buoyancy (W/m3)

σ k :

Turbulence kinetic energy Prandtl number

σ ε :

Turbulent dissipation rate Prandtl number

C 1ε :

Constant of realizable k–ε equations

C 2ε :

Constant of realizable k–ε equations

C 3ε :

Constant of realizable k–ε equations

C * :

Non-dimensional pollutant concentration

C 0 :

Pollutant concentration at the outlet of cooling tower

C a :

Pollutant concentration at the crossflow

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

    Ali Asghar Sedighi & Majid Bazargan

  2. Faculty of New Sciences and Technologies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

    Zeynab Deldoost

Authors
  1. Ali Asghar Sedighi
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  2. Zeynab Deldoost
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  3. Majid Bazargan
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Correspondence to Ali Asghar Sedighi.

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Technical Editor: Daniel Onofre de Almeida Cruz, D.Sc.

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Sedighi, A.A., Deldoost, Z. & Bazargan, M. Desirable effects of cutting grooves on inner side of small cooling tower on reduction in ground level pollutant concentration. J Braz. Soc. Mech. Sci. Eng. 42, 235 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40430-020-02329-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40430-020-02329-y

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