Solar-Enhanced Air-Cooled Heat Exchangers for Geothermal Power Plants

Kamel Hooman, Xiaoxue Huang and Fangming Jiang
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Kamel Hooman: School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
Xiaoxue Huang: Laboratory of Advanced Energy Systems, Guangdong Key Laboratory of New and Renewable Energy Research and Development, CAS Key Laboratory of Renewable Energy, Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Guangzhou 510640, China
Fangming Jiang: Laboratory of Advanced Energy Systems, Guangdong Key Laboratory of New and Renewable Energy Research and Development, CAS Key Laboratory of Renewable Energy, Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Guangzhou 510640, China

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 10, 1-10

Abstract: This paper focuses on the optimization of a Solar-Enhanced Natural-Draft Dry-Cooling Tower (SENDDCT), originally designed by the Queensland Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence (QGECE), as the air-cooled condenser of a geothermal power plant. The conventional method of heat transfer augmentation through fin-assisted area extension is compared with a metal foam-wrapped tube bundle. Both lead to heat-transfer enhancement, albeit at the expense of a higher pressure drop when compared to the bare tube bundle as our reference case. An optimal design is obtained through the use of a simplified analytical model and existing correlations by maximizing the heat transfer rate with a minimum pressure drop goal as the constraint. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to investigate the effect of sunroof diameter, as well as tube bundle layouts and tube spacing, on the overall performance of the system. Aiming to minimize the flow and thermal resistances for a SENDDCT, an optimum design is presented for an existing tower to be equipped with solar panels to afterheat the air leaving the heat exchanger bundles, which are arranged vertically around the tower skirt. Finally, correlations are proposed to predict the total pressure drop and heat transfer of the extended surfaces considered here.

Keywords: heat exchangers; air-cooled condensers; geothermal; cooling tower (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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