Flow and heat-transfer characteristics in buoyancy driven "natural draft cooling tower" under crosswind conditions

Based on the condenser model and principle of "natural draft cooling tower installed in chimney", a simplified porous medium model and a buoyancy-based natural convection heat-transfer model were set up, with which flow field in the tower and heat exchange capacity in each condensing unit were simulated and analyzed at different wind speeds using Fluent software, and subsequently improvement solutions to reduce the influence of crosswind were put forward. Results show that the flow field will be even and symmetric if there is no crosswind, in which case, the air flow at each air intake will be uniform and the duty of each condenser will be homogeneous; if there is crosswind, the air flow at each air intake will be quite different, and the duty of each condenser will be uneven, due to the circular-cylinder flow at air intakes and the" wind cover" phenomenon at air outlets; when the wind speed is larger than 4m/s, the duty of each condenser will be obviously different, the larger the wind speed is, the severer the phenomenon will be. For the purpose of reducing the influence of crosswind, it is feasible to install guide plates at air intakes.