Employing an Effectiveness Model for Calculating Cooling Tower Performance

Abstract

Optimization of the design of chiller/cooling tower systems for large office buildings require an accurate detailed model for the cooling tower. This model must be precise and allow for varying air and water flow rates, ambient air conditions and entering water temperatures. The optimization computational requirement is very time consuming, however, due to the tower model requiring solution of three simultaneous differential equations. This project developed as computer program utilizing an effectiveness model to reduce computational time while maintaining good correlation to existing programs. The methodology involved the use of a tower model program that integrated a centrifugal chiller model, cooling tower model, and system optimization strategy. The effectiveness model was utilized in place of the tower model. The results are very encouraging. The computational time required to optimize the design was reduce approximately 75% while maintaining an accuracy of tower water temperature range of approximately 15%. This reduction in computer time will allow an engineer the flexibility to examine many systems and determine the optimum design in a shorter time frame.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1991
Accession Number
ADA245504

Entities

People

  • John D. Rice

Organizations

  • Georgia Tech

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Flow
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Computational Science
  • Computer Programs
  • Computers
  • Cooling Towers
  • Data Sets
  • Differential Equations
  • Energy Consumption
  • Equations
  • Flow
  • Flow Rate
  • Fluid Mechanics
  • Heat Transfer
  • Humidity
  • Mass Transfer
  • Specific Heat

Fields of Study

  • Engineering

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Fluid Dynamics.