ANALYSIS OF PERFORMANCE OF NATURAL DRAFT COOLING TOWER AT OPTIMIZED INJECTION HEIGHT

Cooling tower is essential part of thermal power plant and chemical industry. It removes heat from recirculated water of heat exchanger. In cooling tower heat is removed circulated water due to evaporative cooling. The make-up water source is used to replenish water lost to evaporation. This paper involves the two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics model based on actual reference conditions. Inside the tower, temperature and humidity has more influence on the performance of natural draft cooling tower. At optimum injection height tower cooling range is about 11°C, which sufficiently capable of increasing the effectiveness of cooling tower. This leads to increase of effectiveness by 12.15%, which results in improved efficiency of power plants. The resulting optimal injection height reduces the relative humidity by 8.5% at the outer radius of tower.