ABSTRACT

The aim of this work was to evaluate the performance of WRPC cooling tower using energy, exergy and CFD analysis methods. To achieve this, the evaluation of performance parameters of the cooling tower using energy method with the aid of Numerical integration via Excel spread sheet, the exergy analysis of the cooling tower was carried out with the aid of engineering equation solver, and additionally, the CFD analysis of air flow using Comsol Multi-physics. The evaluation of  performance characteristics of  WRPC the cooling tower reveals that all the parameters(range, effectiveness, evaporation rate, cooling capacity and performance coefficient) subjected to the comparative analysis between the operational data and design/standard data of WRPC cooling tower  showed that the cooling tower setup is grossly underperforming far below its design/standard operational capability; the CFD analysis of air revealed that the velocity, temperature, and relative humidity  profiles within the cooling tower are in sync with postulated and calculated characteristic of air within the cooling tower. Furthermore, the exergy destruction increases with the increases in mass flow rates of the cooling water, makeup water and air and verse versa, also, the change in exergy of water increases quadratically with temperature of water; the exergy of air remains constant when varied with relative humidity of air, while exergy efficiency and exergy destruction decrease with increase in relative humidity. Maximization of efficiency and Exergy Destruction with Varying Mass Flow Rates produces efficiency with a maximum value of  (0.9589[-]) while exergy destruction has a minimum value of 13.55 at minimum values (1.5kg/s, 0.15 (kg/s), 4.5 (kg/s)) of mass flows rates of Air, Makeup water and cooling water respectively; Minimization of Efficiency and Exergy Destruction with Varying Relative Humidity of air produces  optimal vales  of (0.8022[-]) for exergy efficiency while exergy destruction value of 6.012[W] at a maximum relative humidity value of 0.95[-]. The following recommendation are suggested; Proper evaluation of performance parameters of cooling towers should be done in a controlled environment for accurate results; CFD analysis should be carried out to test for new designs of cooling towers; Aside from low Re-K-e flow conditions other conditions of flow should be tested and results compared.