Cooling performance of solid containing water for spray assisted dry cooling towers

• Multicomponent discrete phase model in FLUENT is modified.
• The new model is partially validated against experimental data.
• Micro analysis of data obtained from SEM was performed.
• Various benefits of using saline water in spray cooling are outlined.

This article investigates the performance of saline water, compared to pure water in spray cooling and demonstrates the existence of several advantages. To simulate the crystallisation behaviour of saline water droplets, a set of modifications are made to the multicomponent discrete phase model (DPM) of ANSYS FLUENT. After validation against single droplet data, a practical spraying application with a single nozzle in a vertical flow path is studied. The results are compared with a similar case using pure water as the coolant. It is shown that using saline water for spray cooling improves cooling efficiency by 8% close to the nozzle. Furthermore, full evaporation takes place substantially earlier compared to the pure water case. The mechanism behind this phenomenon is explained. The consequence of this is a reduction of up to 30% in the distance between nozzle and the creation of a dry gas stream. This paper provides new fundamental understanding in the area of saline spray cooling, and shows that the use of saline water can lead to a number of benefits, such as reduced water costs (compared to pure fresh water), reduced infrastructure costs (more compact cooling towers), and improved cooling performance.