An exergy analysis on the performance of a counterow

wet cooling tower

Thirapong Muangnoi
a
, Wanchai Asvapoositkul
b,
*
, Somchai Wongwises
b
a
The Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment, King Mongkuts University of Technology Thonburi, Bangmod, Bangkok 10140, Thailand
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, King Mongkuts University of Technology Thonburi, Bangmod, Bangkok 10140, Thailand
Received 23 February 2006; accepted 29 August 2006
Available online 18 October 2006
Abstract
Cooling towers are used to extract waste heat from water to atmospheric air. An energy analysis is usually used to investigate the
performance characteristics of cooling tower. However, the energy concept alone is insucient to describe some important viewpoints
on energy utilization. In this study, an exergy analysis is used to indicate exergy and exergy destruction of water and air owing through
the cooling tower. Mathematical model based on heat and mass transfer principle is developed to nd the properties of water and air,
which will be further used in exergy analysis. The model is validated against experimental data. It is noted from the results that the
amount of exergy supplied by water is larger than that absorbed by air, because the system produces entropy. To depict the utilizable
exergy between water and air, exergy of each working uid along the tower are presented. The results show that water exergy decreases
continuously from top to bottom. On the other hand, air exergy is expressed in terms of convective and evaporative heat transfer. Exergy
of air via convective heat transfer initially loses at inlet and slightly recovers along the ow before leaving the tower. However, exergy of
air via evaporative heat transfer is generally high and able to consume exergy supplied by water. Exergy destruction is dened as the
dierence between water exergy change and air exergy change. It reveals that the cooling processes due to thermodynamics irreversibility
perform poorly at bottom and gradually improve along the height of the tower. The results show that the lowest exergy destruction is
located at the top of the tower.
2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Cooling tower; Exergy analysis; Exergy destruction
1. Introduction
A cooling tower is a heat rejection device. Its main func-
tion is to extract waste heat from warm water to the atmo-
sphere. Heat rejection in cooling tower is specied as
convection between the ne droplets of water and the sur-
rounding air, and also as evaporation which allows a small
portion of water to evaporate into moving air. Therefore,
the process involves both heat and mass transfer. Cooling
towers are widely used in most power plants, refrigeration
and air conditioning industries, etc [1]. They can be classied
by the movement of water and air as counterow and cross-
owtypes. Moreover, they can also be classied by means of
air ow into mechanical draft and natural draft types.
The analysis of cooling tower performance has been
studied and developed over the last century. Investigations
on the performance and its factors have been widely stud-
ied. Heat and mass transfer are the core principles in these
analyses. Bahaidarah [2] stated that the method generally
used for cooling tower calculation was developed by Mar-
kel over 70 years ago. The equation was presented in a dif-
ferential form known as Markel Mathematical Modeling
and was used for describing the distributions of water-
and air-conditions along the cooling tower. However, an
obvious disadvantage of Markel equation was based on
the assumptions that evaporation of water ow was
neglected in energy balance and saturated air was at the
exit. These assumptions made the results inaccurate.
1359-4311/$ - see front matter 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2006.08.012
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +662 470 9338; fax: +662 470 9111.
E-mail address: wanchai.asv@kmutt.ac.th (W. Asvapoositkul).
A detailed explanation of the procedure for developing
Markels basic equation applied to counterow and
cross-ow cooling towers was outlined by Baker and Shry-
ock [3]. Zubair et al. [4] investigated the performance char-
acteristics through the counterow cooling tower. The
result showed that a majority mode of heat transfer rate
is evaporation, where it was 62.5% of the total heat transfer
rate at the bottom and about 90% of that at the top of the
tower. Since evaporation is by far the most eective factor
in cooling towers, the accuracy of the predicted conditions
are directly dependent on it. For this purpose, it is quite
common to include the evaporation term in the equations
such as that of Osterle [5] for nding the tower character-
istic ratio (KaV/L) and exit air conditions. Kloppers and
Kro ger [6] expressed the equation for the tower perfor-
mance calculation using the Poppe method [7], which was
developed for actual unsaturated and supersaturated air
before exiting cooling towers. Furthermore, the inuence
of Lewis factors on the performance of wet cooling towers
was proposed by Kloppers and Kro ger [8]. The results
showed that it decreased when the inlet air was relatively
hot and humid. The Lewis factor is proportional to the
heat transfer rate.
Other approaches, proposed by [912], were based upon
the second law analysis which was more instructive in pre-
dicting loss in dierent designs at dierent locations. To
demonstrate this, the experiment with natural draft cooling
tower was done by S

irok et al. [9]. The results conrm that

the low and uniform entropy generation or exergy destruc-
tion in cooling tower can be achieved when heat transfer
across the plan area is homogeneous.
One interesting feature of exergy analysis for the system
which undergoes a psychrometric process such as in cool-
ing tower operation is that the total exergy can be split into
thermomechanical and chemical components [10,11] and so
it enables one to quantify the contribution of each term on
the total exergy through the tower. Shukuya and Hamm-
ache [12] expressed that thermomechanical and chemical
exergy play an important roles in assessing the actual ther-
modynamics merit of psychrometric process application.
Until now, there is still a small number of researchers
who study and investigate the energy utilization of water
Nomenclature
a air/water interfacial area per unit volume of
tower, m
2
/m
3
A tower cross-sectional area, m
2
c
pa
specic heat of dry air at constant pressure, kJ/
kg K
c
pv
specic heat of water vapor at constant pressure,
kJ/kg K
c
pw
specic heat of water at constant pressure, kJ/
kg K
G dry air mass ow rate, kg/s
h enthalpy, kJ/kg
h
c
heat transfer coecient of air, kW/m
2
K
h
d
mass transfer coecient of water, m/s
h
f,w
enthalpy of saturated liquid water evaluated at
T
w
, kJ/kg
h
fg,w
phase change enthalpy (h
fg,w
= h
g,w
h
f,w
) at
T
w
, kJ/kg
h
g,w
enthalpy of saturated water vapor evaluated at
T
w
, kJ/kg
H tower height, m
I exergy destruction, kW
Ka tower characteristic, kg/m
3
s
L water mass ow rate, kg/s
Le
f
Lewis factor, (Le
f
= h
c
/h
d
qc
pa
)
P pressure, kPa
R gas constant, kJ/kg K
s entropy, kJ/kg K
s
f,w
entropy of water, kJ/kg K
T temperature, C
T
db
dry-bulb temperature, C
T
wb
wet-bulb temperature, C
V volume of tower, m
3
X
air
air exergy, kW
X
w
water exergy, kW
Greek symbols
q air density, kg/m
3
x humidity ratio, kg
w
/kg
a
x
s,w
saturated humidity ratio evaluated at T
w
, kg
w
/
kg
a
h relative humidity
w
w
specic water exergy, kJ/kg
w
tm
specic thermomechanical exergy, kJ/kg
w
ch
specic chemical exergy, kJ/kg
l chemical potential, kJ/kg
Subscripts
0 restricted dead state
00 environment
a dry air
air moist air
conv convective heat transfer
evap evaporative heat transfer
exp experiment
e exit
i inlet
pred prediction
v water vapor
w water
and air in cooling tower, especially via exergy analysis.
Currently, little is known about the applicability of exergy
analysis for cooling tower investigation.
In the method to be predicted in this paper, a counter-
ow wet cooling tower performance is predicted by using
heat and mass transfer between water and air to drive the
solution to steady-state conditions. The second law is used
to take account of exergy distributions of water and air in
cooling tower. Investigation of the calculated results can be
used to further understand details of exergy in cooling
towers.
2. Mathematical model
In counterow cooling tower, water ows downwards
while air ows upwards. It is assumed that the conditions
of water and air vary only with vertical position in the
tower. The dierential section of the tower height dH and
the given boundary conditions are shown in Fig. 1. The
important assumptions of the model are as follow [13]:
Heat and mass transfer through the tower wall to the
environment is negligible.
Heat transfer from the tower fan to air and water is
negligible.
Water and dry air specic heats are constant.
Heat and mass transfer coecients throughout the
tower are constant.
Heat and mass transfer is in a direction normal to the
ow.
Water loss by drift is negligible.
Temperatures of water and air at any cross-sections are
uniform.
For steady-state condition equation, the mass balance
equation of the amount of evaporated water into air yields
dL Gdx 1
Heat removed from water is equal to heat gained by air
yields
Gdh Ldh
f;w
h
f;w
Gdx 2
The energy balance based on the concept of enthalpy
potential in terms of heat- and mass-transfer coecients,
h
c
and h
d
respectively, can be written both for air and water
sides. The convective mass transfer established from
Osterle [5] is shown as
Gdx h
d
qax
s;w
x dV 3
For air energy balance where h
fg,w
h
g,w
[14],
Gdh h
c
aT
w
T dV h
d
qadV x
s;w
xh
g;w
4
After simplication of Eqs. (3) and (4) and the replacement
of dH = (dV)/A where H is the tower height (m) and A is
the constant tower cross-sectional area (m
2
), the change
of air enthalpy and the change of humidity ratio to the
tower height are:
dh
dH

KaA
G
Le
f
c
pa
T
w
T h
g;w
x
s;w
x; and 5
dx
dH

KaA
G
x
s;w
x 6
where Lewis factor (Le
f
= h
c
/h
d
qc
pa
) is an indicator of the
relative rates of heat and mass transfer in evaporative pro-
cess [8] and is determined to be unity [5]. Ka, which is writ-
ten for h
d
q a, is the tower characteristic. By substitution of
dh
f,w
= c
pw
dT
w
in Eq. (2), the corresponding change of
water temperature on the tower height is
dT
w

G
Lc
pw
dh h
f;w
dx 7
For given water temperature at inlet and exit (T
w,i
, T
w,e
),
water to air mass ow ratio (L/G), the air inlet dry-bulb
and wet-bulb temperatures (T
db,i
, T
wb,i
), tower cross-sec-
tional area (A), and tower characteristic (Ka), Eqs. (5)
(7) may be solved numerically for exit conditions of both
air and water stream. The calculation starts at discrete
points along the tower height from bottom to top with
equal space DH. The airwater vapor thermodynamics
properties are calculated by equations based on ASHRAE
[15] and Mohiuddin and Kant [16]. The air enthalpy
change, dh, and humidity ratio change, dx, through the
tower can be obtained by solving Eqs. (5) and (6). There-
fore, dT
w
can be calculated from Eq. (7). The water ow
rate which is reduced continuously from top to bottom
due to evaporation from Eq. (1) can be written as
L
Hj1
L
Hj
Gx
Hj1
x
Hj
8
L, h
f,w

L - dL
h
f,w
dh
f,w
G, h,
G
h + dh
+ d
dH=dV/A
G, h
e
,
e
, T
e
G, h
i
,
i
, T
i
L
e
, h
f,w,e
, T
e
L
i
, h
f,w,i
, T
w,i
dQ
Air Water
Air Water
Fig. 1. Schematic of mass and energy balance of a counterow wet
cooling tower.
Since L at the bottom (H = 0) is unknown, an initial
guess for L at H = 0 is made. An iterative calculation is
required until the change in L at the top from the calcu-
lated value and the given value become smaller. The com-
putational procedure is outlined in Fig. 2.
3. Exergy calculation
Taking the analysis, the specic exergy in psychrometric
processsuch as in the cooling tower operating mechanism
without the eect of kinetic and potential energy at steady
statecan thus be generally represented as
w w
tm
w
ch
9
The specic thermomechanical exergy can be written as
[17]
w
tm
h h
0
T
0
s s
0
10
For an ideal gas with constant specic heat c
p
,
w
tm
c
p
T T
0
T
0
c
p
ln
T
T
0
Rln
P
P
0
_ _
11
The specic chemical exergy dened in Wark [18] is shown
as
w
ch

n
k1
x
k
l
k;0
l
k;00
12
where x
k
is the mole fraction of substance k in the mixture.
For ideal gas mixture, the chemical potential integrated
h,
Start
Assume the water mass flow rate at the outlet, L
H=0
T
w, H(j+1)
= T
w, H(j)
+ T
w
,
L
H(j+1)
= L
H(j)
+ L
* L L
inlet ) (J
max

Initially prescribed flow conditions
for water and air. Input T
w,i
, T
w,e
,
T
db,i
, T
wb,i
, L
i
, G, A, Ka
For j = 1 to J
max
- 1
H
j+1
= H
j
+ H
Calculate the increasing water
temperature, dT
w
, by Eq. (7)
Yes
No
End
Calculate dh/dH from Eq. (5), where h
H(j+1)
= h
H(j)
+
Calculate d/dH by Eq. (6), where
H(j+1)
=
H(j)
+ .

Next j
*Convergence criteria, = 5 10
-5
kg/s
Fig. 2. The owchart of the calculation of waterair conditions in cooling tower.
between restricted dead state and environmental state at
ambient temperature T
0
is given by
l
k;0
l
k;00
RT
0
ln
P
k;0
P
k;00
13
It can be also noted that the specic exergy for psychro-
metric process w is a measure of the thermomechanical
exergy, changed from actual state to restricted dead state,
plus the chemical exergy, changed from restricted dead
state to environment. Thus,
w h h
0
T
0
s s
0

n
k1
x
k
l
k;0
l
k;00
14
In the wet-type cooling tower, water and air are the only
two kinds of working uids revealed in operation. So it is
important to write the exergy equations for both water
and air for applying in the analysis. On the basis of Eq.
(14), the exergy of water X
w
in environment when water
is considered as an incompressible uid [18] can be written
as
X
w
Lh
f;w
h
f;0
v
f;T
P P
sat;T

T
0
s
f;w
s
f;0
R
v
T
0
ln h
0
15
In practice, the second term on the right side of the above
equation is usually neglected when compared with
R
v
T
0
lnh
0
. That is, Eq. (15) is nally becomes:
X
w
Lh
f;w
h
f;0
T
0
s
f;w
s
f;0
R
v
T
0
ln h
0
16
For the air side, the specic exergy of air w
air
may be con-
sidered as an ideal gas mixture composed of dry air and
water vapor, which can be deducted from Eq. (14) in envi-
ronment. This can be written as [11]
w
air
x
a

h
a


h
a;0
T
0
s
a
s
a;0
l
a
l
a;0

x
v

h
v


h
v;0
T
0
s
v
s
v;0
l
v
l
v;0
17
The over-bar () represents the mole basis. Substituting the
above equation in the form of constant specic heat c
pa
and
c
pv
for Dh
a
c
pa
T T
0
and Ds
a
c
pa
lnT=T
0

RlnP=P
0
, and, on the basis of Eq. (12), l
a
l
a;0

RT
0
lnx
a
=x
a;0
, the content of water vapor can be done sim-
ilarly. As a result,
w
air
x
a
c
pa
x
v
c
pv
T T
0
T
0
ln
T
T
0
_ _
RT
0
ln
P
P
0
RT
0
x
a
ln
x
a
x
a;0
x
v
ln
x
v
x
v;0
18
Writing on a mass of dry air basis when neglecting the
change of pressure through cooling tower (P = P
0
), the
exergy of air X
air
becomes
X
air
G c
pa
xc
pv
T T
0
T
0
ln
T
T
0

_
R
a
T
0
1 1:608x ln1 1:608x
00
=1 1:608x
_
1:608xln
x
x
00
__
19
For determining the rate of exergy destruction I, the loss
potential of air to recover exergy supplied by water, can be
constructed from the control-volume exergy balance equa-
tion. The relation is applied at steady state conditions and
undergoes an adiabatic process with no work delivered.
Assuming that airwater thermodynamics properties are
known at discrete points along the tower height, the exergy
destruction for each incremental tower height dH is
X
w;Hj1
X
air;Hj

..
Total exergy entering
X
w;Hj
X
air;Hj1

..
Total exergy leaving
I
..
Destroyed exergy
20
After rearrangement, the exergy destruction for the discrete
height dH will be
I X
w;Hj1
X
w;Hj
X
air;Hj
X
air;Hj1
21
4. Performance simulation
To validate the method, some experimental data in
Table 1 done by Simpson and Sherwood [19] is applied
to the cooling tower. The comparative results are the exit
dry-bulb temperatures (T
db,e
), and exit wet-bulb tempera-
tures (T
wb,e
). It can be noted that the error between the pre-
dicted and experimental values are within 4.0%. Thus, this
model is agreed in use for predicting the conditions of
water and air in cooling towers. The experiment No. 1 of
Table 1 is used to depict the characteristics of water and
air through cooling tower. The ambient conditions used
Table 1
Comparison between experimental data obtained from Simpson and
Sherwood [19] and those obtained from mathematical model and their
errors
Experiments no.
1 2 3 4
Experimental conditions
Inlet water ow rate, L
i
(kg/s) 1.259 1.259 1.008 1.008
Inlet dry air ow rate, G (kg/s) 1.187 1.187 1.265 1.250
Inlet dry-bulb temperature, T
db,i
(C) 29.00 30.50 35.00 35.00
Inlet wet-bulb temperature, T
wb,i
(C) 21.11 21.11 26.67 26.67
Inlet water temperature, T
w,i
(C) 28.72 34.50 38.78 38.78
Exit water temperature, T
w,e
(C) 24.22 26.22 29.33 29.33
Tower cross-sectional area, A (m
2
) 1.057 1.057 1.057 1.057
Tower characteristic, Ka (kg/m
3
s) 3.025 3.025 3.025 3.025
Experimental results
Exit dry-bulb temperature,
T
db,e,exp
(C)
26.67 30.27 33.27 33.27
Exit wet-bulb temperature,
T
wb,e,exp
(C)
26.17 29.94 32.89 32.89
Model predicted results
Exit dry-bulb temperature,
T
db,e,pred
(C)
27.42 31.17 34.44 34.46
Exit wet-bulb temperature,
T
w,e,pred
(C)
26.35 30.02 33.04 33.11
Errors in predicted values
T
db,e,pred
(%) 2.81 2.97 3.52 3.58
T
w,e,pred
(%) 0.69 0.27 0.46 0.67
for exergy analysis are at T
0
= 25 C, P
0
= 1 atm, and
x
00
= 0.009923 kg/kg (50% RH). The results from the cal-
culation are plotted in Figs. 38.
Water temperature, air temperature and humidity ratio
are plotted against the height of the tower as shown in
Fig. 3. Water temperature, T
w
, decreases continuously as
it ows downwards to the bottom. Air ows upwards from
the entrance at bottom and exits at top. The dry-bulb tem-
perature of inlet air, T
db
, initially decreases and then slightly
increases after the tower height of 0.68 m (an intersection
point of T
w
and T
db
). Before this point T
w
is less than
T
db
. This indicates that heat ows from air to water. How-
ever, after the intersection point T
w
is more than T
db
.
Therefore, heat ows in the opposite direction. It is known
that the water thermal energy is removed by both convec-
tive and evaporative heat transfers to air. The eect from
evaporation can be indicated in terms of air humidity ratio,
x, and wet-bulb temperature, T
wb
. It is also noted that
T
wb
, which increases continuously from bottom to top, is
always less than T
w
. In this case, the approach temperature
is 3.11 C. As a result, heat still ows from water into air.
Therefore, heat transfer mode in cooling tower is domi-
nated by evaporation.
Fig. 4 shows water exergy, X
w
, and water temperature.
Water exergy dened as the available energy carried by sup-
plying water decreases continuously from top to bottom. It
can be explained from the fact that water temperature
decreases from top to bottom as a result of supplying its
exergy to air. Water exergy shows that the supplying rate
is nearly constant until approaching the bottom. Eq. (16)
explains water exergy where the rst two terms are known
as thermal exergy and the last is chemical exergy. Thermal
exergy is the exergy associated with dierence in tempera-
tures, and chemical exergy is the one that associated with
118.5
118.8
119.1
119.4
119.7
120.0
120.3
0.00 0.13 0.26 0.38 0.51 0.64 0.77 0.90 1.02 1.15
Height of tower (m)
E
x
e
r
g
y

o
f

w
a
t
e
r

(
k
W
)
22.0
24.0
26.0
28.0
30.0
32.0
W
a
t
e
r

t
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e

(

C
)
Tw
Xw
Fig. 4. Exergy of water and water temperature proles through the
cooling tower.
0.000
0.005
0.010
0.015
0.020
0.025
0.030
0.035
0.040
0.00 0.13 0.26 0.38 0.51 0.64 0.77 0.90 1.02 1.15
Height of tower (m)
E
x
e
r
g
y

o
f

a
i
r

v
i
a

c
o
n
v
e
c
t
i
v
e

h
e
a
t

t
r
a
n
s
f
e
r

(
k
W
)
25.0
26.0
27.0
28.0
29.0
30.0
D
r
y
-
b
u
l
b

t
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e

(

C
)
Tdb
Xair,conv
Fig. 5. Exergy of air via convective heat transfer and air temperature
proles through the cooling tower.
18.0
20.0
22.0
24.0
26.0
28.0
30.0
0.00 0.13 0.26 0.38 0.51 0.64 0.77 0.90 1.02 1.15
Height of tower (m)
T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e

(

C
)
0.01000
0.01500
0.02000
0.02500
0.03000
0.03500
0.04000
H
u
m
i
d
i
t
y

r
a
t
i
o

(
k
g

w
/
k
g
a
)
Tdb

Twb
Tw
Fig. 3. Temperature proles of water and air, and humidity ratio prole
through the cooling tower.
0.000
0.200
0.400
0.600
0.800
1.000
0.00 0.13 0.26 0.38 0.51 0.64 0.77 0.90 1.02 1.15
Hieght of tower (m)
E
x
e
r
g
y

o
f

a
i
r

v
i
a

e
v
a
p
o
r
a
t
i
v
e

h
e
a
t

t
r
a
n
s
f
e
r

(
k
W
)
0.0100
0.0120
0.0140
0.0160
0.0180
0.0200
0.0220
H
u
m
i
d
i
t
y

r
a
t
i
o

(
k
g
w
/
k
g
a
)

Xair,evap
Fig. 6. Exergy of air via evaporative heat transfer and humidity ratio
proles through the cooling tower.
ambient humidity, h
0
. Because the chemical exergy at ambi-
ent is constant, the temperature of water can be used as an
indicator of water exergy. The process shows that water
exergy at the bottom is less than that at the top. Similar ten-
dency can be held for water temperature.
On the air side, its exergy, X
air
, means that available
energy of air to recovers or utilizes that supplied by water.
There are two kinds of exergy in air: exergy of air via con-
vective heat transfer, X
air,conv
, and exergy of air via evapo-
rative heat transfer, X
air,evap
. The process is described by
Eq. (19) where the rst term represents X
air,conv
and the rest
is X
air,evap
. Fig. 5 shows exergy of air via convective heat
transfer and dry-bulb temperature proles along the cool-
ing tower. The reduction of X
air,conv
and T
db
can be noted
from the bottom to the height of 0.68 m. These correspond
with the results discussed earlier in Fig. 3. In that region,
heat transfer is taking place from air to water due to neg-
ative convection. The intersection point of T
db
and T
w
indi-
cates no temperature dierence; hence, no convective heat
transfer of air to water with the minimum T
db
value. This
also indicated the minimum value of X
air,conv
. After this
point, X
air,conv
contained in air is able to let the thermal
energy ow into it and its T
db
increases.
Exergy of air via evaporative heat transferX
air,evap

and its humidity ratio are shown in Fig. 6. Both values

increase continuously along the tower. These indicate that
X
air,evap
contained by air is able to let the thermal energy
ow into it.
Exergy of air via convective and evaporative heat trans-
fers, X
air,conv
and X
air,evap
, and exergy of air (X
air
=
X
air,conv
+ X
air,evap
) are plotted as a function of tower
height shown in Fig. 7. When comparing with exergy of
water X
w
in Fig. 4, it is noted that the values of X
w
are
more than those of X
air
through the tower. This means that
exergy contained in the water is able to disperse its thermal
energy into the environment. Meanwhile, exergy contained
in the air is able to let the thermal energy ow into it. It is
also clearly shown in Fig. 7 that the process is dominated
by exergy of air via evaporative heat transfer.
Exergy consumption is always accompanied by entropy
generation, thus the generated entropy must be discarded
constantly from water. The generated entropy is propor-
tional to exergy destruction [9]. The exergy destruction I
represented by the dierence between exergy change of
water and exergy change of air, DX
w
and DX
air
, shown in
Fig. 8. It can be described that, for example, 0.099 kW of
exergy destruction is destroyed when the tower bottom
height is changed from 0.00 m to 0.13 m. Furthermore,
another 0.073 kW of exergy destruction is also destroyed
when the tower height is changed from 0.13 m to 0.26 m,
and so on. These distributions of exergy destruction indi-
cate that these are high at bottom and gradually low at
the top. The minimum I locates at the top.
5. Conclusion
A mathematical model for predicting the properties of
water and air along the counterow wet cooling tower is
based on heat and mass transfer principles. The exergy
analysis is used to explain the performance of simulated
cooling tower. A method was presented for the prediction
cooling tower performance by employing an exergy analy-
sis. The method was validated using experimental data
from [19]. The results show that:
Water exergy dened as the available energy carried by
water to be supplied decreases continuously from top to
bottom. For the air side, its exergy means the available
energy of air to recover or utilize that supplied by water.
There are two kinds of exergy in air, that are due to exergy
of air via convective heat transfer and exergy of air via
evaporative heat transfer. It reveals that exergy of air is
mainly controlled by exergy of air via evaporative heat
transfer. Exergy destruction is high at the bottom and
reducing at the top. The distributions of exergy destruction
can be used as a guideline to nd optimal potential for
improving cooling tower performance. For example, the
use of a combination of two types of lling material is
0.000
0.100
0.200
0.300
0.400
0.500
0.600
0.700
0.800
0.00 0.13 0.26 0.38 0.51 0.64 0.77 0.90 1.02 1.15
Height of tower (m)
E
x
e
r
g
y

o
f

a
i
r

(
k
W
)
Xair
Xair,evap
Xair,conv
Fig. 7. Exergy of air which is partly of those via convective and
evaporative heat transfer proles through the cooling tower.
0.000
0.020
0.040
0.060
0.080
0.100
0.120
0.13 0.26 0.38 0.51 0.64 0.77 0.90 1.02 1.15
Height of tower (m)
E
x
e
r
g
y

d
e
s
t
r
u
c
t
i
o
n

(
k
W
)
Fig. 8. Exergy destruction values inside cooling tower.
chosen by placing very ecient lling material with a large
contact area at the bottom region where exergy destruction
is high, and placing a regular one at the top region where
exergy destruction is low.
One important observation from this study is that the
choice of the ambient conditions (eg. T
wb
, T
db
) aects the
results of exergy analysis quite strongly. Currently, work
is in progress to see the inlet conditions of air and water
eects to the cooling tower performance.
Acknowledgement
This present study was nancially supported by the
Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment
(JGSEE) and the Thailand Research Fund (TRF). The
authors would like to express their appreciation to Assis-
tant Professor Sitichai Wongtanasuporn for his recommen-
dations in carrying out this research.
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