Circularly arranged air-cooled condensers to restrain adverse wind effects

Ambient winds may deteriorate the thermo-flow performances of air-cooled condenser (ACC) due to its geometry defects to a certain extent. In this work, a novel circular array of ACCs is proposed to restrain the adverse wind effects. By means of CFD simulations, the air-side flow and heat transfer performances are investigated at various wind speeds in five characteristic wind directions (−45°, −90°, 0°, 45° and 90°). The cooling air variable fields, mass flow rate of axial flow fans and turbine back pressure are analyzed and compared with the conventional ACCs. The results show that, both the hot plume recirculation flows and reverse flows of the peripheral condenser cells are greatly weakened for the proposed ACCs under wind conditions, leading to a much improved cooling efficiency. Besides in the wind direction of 90°, the cooling performance can be greatly improved, but in the wind direction of 0°, the proposed ACCs present an inappreciably inferior performance compared with the conventional ACCs. In the absence of winds, the circular array can also make the ACCs operate in a more energy efficient way. This work may contribute to the optimal design and energy efficient operation of air-cooled condensers in power plants.