Effects of Acoustic Barriers and Crosswind on the Operating Performance of Evaporative Cooling Tower Groups

摘要: Most evaporative cooling towers are arranged on building roof due to the limitation of space and noise, and acoustic barriers are always installed around cooling towers in practical applications. The existence of acoustic bathers and crosswind may affect the recirculation phenomenon which is directly related to the operating performance of cooling towers. In this study, a physical and mathematical computation model is proposed to research the crosswind and distance between acoustic bathers and inlet of cooling towers. Both sensible and latent heat are considered in this research. The reflux flow rate and performance ratio are obtained to evaluate the recirculation and operating performance, respectively. The results show that the higher the crosswind velocity, the larger the reflux flow rate, and the lower the performance ratio of cooling tower groups. For high crosswind velocity, the presence of acoustic barriers is useful to inhibit reflux and improve operating performance, especially for ICE cooling tower groups. In addition, the optimum values are recommended for LiBr/ICE cooling tower groups in the research cases The variation of reflux flow rate and performance ratio with the acoustic bathers' distance presents a parabolic tendency.