Visible plume model for a mechanical-draft cooling tower

-Development of the plume height and diffusion models-

Abstract

We developed new plume rise and diffusion models for gas dispersion from a mechanical-draft cooling tower. Wind tunnel experiments were conducted to investigate effects of fan location and cooling tower configuration on gas dispersion from the cooling towers. The results show that cooling tower configuration does not affect the plume rise and diffusion, but the fan location and numbers strongly affect them. The plume rise increases with the fun number in case of the fans located in downwind direction, but it is comparable level to the single fan in case of orthogonally-aligned fans to the wind direction. In addition, the vertical and horizontal diffusion becomes large as the fan number increases. These effects are not considered by the previous Gaussian type model (FOG model), generating the large difference of the plume rise and dispersion between the model and the wind tunnel experiment. On the other hand, the developed models considering the fan location and number can accurately estimate the plume rise and diffusion from the mechanical-draft cooling towers.