Numerical Investigation of a Single Phase Air Flow inside Porous Media of a Cross Flow Cooling Tower

Cooling tower in the HVAC industry is used to reject heat from a system. The refrigeration cycle requires that the heat absorbed from a refrigerated space be rejected and this is done through the condenser where the water from the cooling tower exchanges heat so that it can be discharged by the cooling tower. It is essential that the performance of the cooling tower be improved so the refrigerant cycle can take place at its optimum.The paper explores the area in the cross-flow cooling tower where the focus on where the porous media or the fill / packing is located and the area in the vicinity for a single phase flow. The behavior of the air intake flow into the cooling tower from the side part through the fill will be observed and how it affects the distribution of the air flow inside the fill will be analyzed. The solution of the related governing equation for the basic flow and for flow involving porous media will be presented. It was revealed that the porosity introduced a high pressure drop inside the cooling tower. The pressure inside the cooling tower generally is lower that before the porous media was introduced. The results also revealed that if the heat transfer inside the porous media is to be improved, higher dynamic pressure inside the cooling tower is required which would result in higher fan power output.