Heat Mass Transfer (2009) 45:14231433

DOI 10.1007/s00231-009-0521-x

ORIGINAL

Numerical simulation of heat transfer performance

of an air-cooled steam condenser in a thermal power plant
Xiufeng Gao Chengwei Zhang Jinjia Wei
Bo Yu

Received: 10 April 2009 / Accepted: 28 July 2009 / Published online: 13 August 2009
Springer-Verlag 2009

Abstract Numerical simulation of the thermal-flow

characteristics and heat transfer performance is made of an
air-cooled steam condenser (ACSC) in a thermal power
plant by considering the effects of ambient wind speed and
direction, air-cooled platform height, location of the main
factory building and terrain condition. A simplified physical model of the ACSC combined with the measured data
as input parameters is used in the simulation. The wind
speed effects on the heat transfer performance and the
corresponding steam turbine back pressure for different
heights of the air-cooled platform are obtained. It is found
that the turbine back pressure (absolute pressure) increases
with the increase of wind speed and the decrease of platform height. This is because wind can not only reduce the
flowrate in the axial fans, especially at the periphery of the
air-cooled platform, due to cross-flow effects, but also
cause an air temperature increase at the fan inlet due to hot
air recirculation, resulting in the deterioration of the heat
transfer performance. The hot air recirculation is found to
be the dominant factor because the main factory building is
situated on the windward side of the ACSC.
List of symbols
Dh
Hydraulic diameter
h
Platform height (m)

X. Gao
C. Zhang
J. Wei (&)

State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering,
Xian Jiaotong University, 710049 Xian, China
e-mail: jjwei@mail.xjtu.edu.cn
B. Yu
Beijing Key Laboratory of Urban Oil and Gas Distribution
Technology, China University of Petroleum (Beijing),
Beijing, China

k
Nu
p
Pr
q
Q
Re
t
T
U
Umin
V
x, y, z

Thermal conductivity (W m/K)

Nusselt number
Pressure (Pa)
Prandtl number
Air mass flowrate (kg/s)
Heat rejection rate (W)
Reynolds number
Time (s)
Temperature (C)
Wind speed (m/s)
Air velocity at the minimum flow area (m/s)
Air velocity normal to the fan (m/s)
Coordinate directions (m)

Greek symbols
a Heat transfer coefficient [W/(m2K)]
b Wind direction angle (degree)
k Ground roughness coefficient
m Kinematic viscosity (m2/s)
q Density (kg/m3)
Subscripts
0 Reference situation

1 Introduction
Although a direct air-cooled steam condenser (ACSC) has
the shortcomings of the elevated turbine back pressure
(absolute pressure) and thus the reduced cycle efficiency as
compared to a water-cooled circuit, it is preferable to
water-cooled ones in a thermal power plant for the areas
rich in coal resources but poor in water [1]. There is an
array of air-cooled units in the ACSC, each consisting of an
A-frame configuration of finned tube heat exchanger bundles below which an axial flow fan is fixed. A stream of

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ambient cooling air is forced to flow through the system

and receives heat from the condensing steam in the finned
tubes. Owing to the dynamic interaction between the steam
turbines and the ACSC, a change in the heat rejection rate
of the ACSC will directly influence the efficiency of the
steam turbines. Therefore, it is very important to study the
heat transfer performance of the ACSC.
Many factors affect the running performance of the
ACSC. Firstly, the environmental wind, especially strong
wind, can generate flow distortions at the inlet of the axial
fans to deteriorate the fan performance by reducing the
cooling air flowrate and thus have an adverse influence on
the heat rejection power of the ACSC [2, 3]. Secondly, the
surroundings of the ACSC, such as the main factory
building and terrain, also have influences [4, 5]. If buildings are in the windward side of the fans, they will block
air flowing to the inlet of fans. On the other hand, in the lee
of the buildings a wake zone with low pressure is formed,
and the hot buoyant outlet air plume from the ACSC is
inhaled to this zone and then is drawn back into the ACSC
inlet, resulting in an increase in the effective temperature of
the cooling air with a corresponding reduction in heat
rejection rate [68]. The heat transfer reduction caused by
both the flow distortion in the fan inlet and the hot air
recirculation leads to an increase of turbine back pressure,
and occasional turbine trips occurs under extremely gusty
conditions [3].
The heat transfer performance of ACSCs is closely
related to the thermal-flow field about and through it. Some
experimental and numerical studies have been conducted
for investigating the thermal flow field [2, 613], and it is
found that computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a very
effective way to investigate the performance of ACSCs [9].
Rooyen and Kroger studied numerically the performance
of ACSCs under windy conditions, and they found that the
effect of flow distortion at the fan inlet was much larger
than that of the hot air recirculation [9]. In the simulation,
they did not consider the effects of the main factory
buildings location which is usually situated adjacent to the
ACSC. Wang et al., however, found that the hot air recirculation has a very large impact on the heat rejection rate
of the ACSC due to the existence of the main factory
building [10]. They found that the factory building located
at the windward side of the ACSC could generate large
eddies with low pressure between the factory building and
the ACSC, resulting in a strong hot air plume recirculation.
In their simulation, however, the wind-induced flow distortion at the fan inlet was not considered, and the air mass
flowrate at the inlet of the fan was assumed to be constant
for simplification. The outlet air temperature from the
ACSC was also assumed to be a prescribed uniform value.
Since both the air mass flowrate and the outlet air temperature were the given input computational conditions for

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Heat Mass Transfer (2009) 45:14231433

the simulation, this method can not be a good way to obtain

accurate quantitative results. Therefore, it seems that a
reasonable numerical model should give full consideration
to both the surrounding effects on the hot air recirculation
and the flow distortion at the fan inlet.
In this work, a simplified physical model of the ACSC is
developed. A heat exchanger model is used for simulating
the flow and heat transfer in the ACSC, in which the heat
exchanger is simplified as a porous media and all flow
losses are taken into account by a viscous coefficient and
an inertial loss coefficient. In addition, a fan model is used
to get the flow condition at the heat exchanger inlet by
giving the actual performance curves of the fan. The surroundings, including chimney, main factory building and
terrain, are considered in the simulation to investigate their
effects. At first, we look into the effects of wind direction
to find the most unfavorable wind direction. Then, at the
most unfavorable wind direction, the effect of wind speed
on the ACSC performance for different heights of aircooled platform is investigated to determine an optimum
height. Finally, at the designed height of platform, how the
ambient wind speed and direction affect the total heat
transfer capacity of the ACSC and the back pressure of the
running turbine are investigated under the most unfavorable summer condition. At the same time, the contributions
of all the factors that affect the ACSC performance are
analyzed. The results of our study provide a reference for
both the design and running of the ACSCs in thermal
power plants.

2 Numerical model and methods

2.1 Geometric model
Direct air-cooled condensers from a 2 9 135 MW thermal
power plant are used for the simulation. To reduce the
length of steam pipes in a power plant, the platform of aircooled condensers is usually sited right behind the steam
turbine room. The configurations of the proposed power
plant, including the air-cooled condensers platform and
buildings which comprises two 56 m high joint boiler
rooms, a 28 m high steam turbine room and a 180 m high
chimney, together with the definition of the incident angles
of wind, are shown in Fig. 1. A steep hill with an elevation
angle of 80 and a maximum height of 18 m in the west of
the air-cooled platform is also shown in Fig. 1 for the
investigation of the terrain effect. The ACSC has 32 aircooled units in total, and each consists of an A-frame
configuration of steel finned elliptical tube bundles and an
axial flow fan is mounted underneath. Exhaust turbinesteam flows inside the steel elliptical tubes, and the cooling
air is drawn through the fan to take the heat from the

Heat Mass Transfer (2009) 45:14231433

1425

Fig. 1 Geometric model

S
Chimney

N
Boiler rooms

Turbine room

Hill
Air-cooled platform
Wind wall

Wind direction angle

Pillar

exhaust turbine-steam which converts to condensate. The

air-cooled units distributed in 8 columns 9 4 rows are
mounted on a 4 m high steel rectangular platform, which is
supported by 2 9 6 cylindrical pillars made of reinforced
concrete. To avoid the unfavorable effect of wind and
increase the efficiency of condensers, a windbreak is constructed around the platform with an equivalent height of
the condensers 10 m. Four different heights, 22, 25, 28 and
32 m, of the air cooled platform (pillars) are studied for
selecting an optimum designing height.
2.2 Simplified physical model
The air thermal-flow around the direct air-cooled platform
is assumed as incompressible and steady. The governing
equations are Reynolds averaged NavierStokes equations.
The effect of the buoyancy force on the air is simulated via
the Boussinesq variable density model.
In a single air-cooled unit, the heat exchanger has many
cooling fins on the tube, which will entail an unreasonably
elevated number of elements and thus an excessive computational effort. In order to guarantee the computational
efficiency without losing the correctness, the single aircooled unit in the present study is simplified to a
11.1 9 11.04 9 10 m3 (length 9 width 9 height) cubic
box fulfilled with porous media, under which an axial fan is
arranged. The tube surface is set at the saturation temperature of the exhaust turbine-steam and the turbine back
pressure is the saturation pressure.
In our work, the HEAT EXCHANGER model in the
FLUENT software is used to solve the heat transfer problem in the air-cooled unit, in which the heat exchanger core
is treated as a fluid zone with momentum and heat transfer.
Heat transfer is modeled as a heat source in the energy
equation and the fluid zone representing the heat exchanger

core is subdivided into macroscopic cells along the cooling

air path. The steam is in a state of constant saturation
temperature. The air inlet temperature to each macro can be
computed and is then used subsequently to compute the
heat rejection from each macro. This approach provides a
realistic heat rejection distribution over the heat exchanger
core, and the total heat rejection from the heat exchanger
core is computed as the sum of the heat rejection from all
the macros. Experimental heat transfer coefficient can be
used for the computation of the total heat rejection in the
heat exchanger core, which is correlated in a dimensionless
form as
Nu 1:18 Re0:287 Pr 0:33

where Nu is the Nusselt number, Nu = aDh/k; Re is the

Reynolds number, Re = UminDh/v. Here, a is the average
heat transfer coefficient, Dh the hydrodynamic diameter,
k the thermal conductivity, Umin the air velocity at the
minimum area, m the kinematic viscosity.
The porous media model is used in the present study to
simulate flow resistance in the air-cooled unit. In the
analysis, the pressure loss is added to the standard
momentum equation of fluid flow as a momentum sink,
contributing to the pressure gradient in the porous cell. The
momentum sink term is composed of two parts, a viscous
loss term defined by Darcys law and a conventional
inertial loss term. The constants in the two terms are
determined by creating a pressure drop equal to the measured value in the air-cooled unit. The measured pressure
drop across the heat exchanger is correlated in a dimensionless form as
f 2577:3 Re0:61
where f is the drag coefficient, f
is the pressure drop.

2
2
Dp=0:5qUmin
:

Here, Dp

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The main function of the axial flow fan is to boost the

ambient cooling air to the heat exchanger. Therefore, the
FAN model in the FLUENT software is selected in
the present study because it can increase the pressure of the
fluid flow across the fan to fulfil this purpose. Here, the fan
is simplified as a infinitely thin layer for discontinuous
pressure rise to overcome the flow resistance, thus the flow
across the fan is considered to be one-dimensional without
consideration of the swirl component. The pressure rise is
specified as a function of the velocity through the fan,
Dp = 217 - 3.26 V - 8.46 V2 Pa, which is determined
from the actual performance curve of the fan. Here, V is the
magnitude of the local fluid velocity normal to the fan.
By employing the HEAT EXCHANGER model and
FAN model in the FLUENT software and giving the
experimental data of heat transfer coefficient, pressure drop
and the fan performance curve, the simplified model can
simulate the flow and heat transfer characteristics of a
single air-cooled unit reasonably.
2.3 Computing grids
In our work, Gambit is used to model geometry shape and
generate computational grids. To ensure accuracy and
save time, structured grids are used for the air-cooled
units and solid surfaces, and unstructured grids are used
for other computational zones. To study the heat transfer
of the ACSC in an infinite space, a solution domain which
is large enough to avoid the domain size effect should be
selected without affecting the accuracy of the results. A
cuboid form of the computational zone is adopted with
the dimensions of 2,000 9 2,000 9 1,000 m3, almost
twenty times larger than the size of the ACSC in each
direction of x, y and z coordinates, resulting in a volume
almost 8,000 times the volume of the air-cooled platform.
Numerical results show that the velocity and temperature
distribution at the inlet of the computational zone are the
same as those at the outlet, indicating that the selected
computational zone is large enough to carry out the
proposed simulation.
The grids of the air-cooled platform, boiler and turbine
rooms, the chimney and the hill are shown in Fig. 2. The
total grid number is about 3,000,000. The results of this set
of grids are considered to be the solutions independent of
the grid number since this grid number yields a total heat
rejection rate of the ACSC only 0.07% larger than the grid
number of 2,5000,000. In Fig. 2, x coordinate indicates the
horizontal direction in which the turbine room points to
the air-cooled platform; y-direction shows the horizontal
direction perpendicular to the x-direction; and z-direction is
the vertical direction from the ground to the sky. The x, y
and z coordinates meet the right-hand rule.

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Heat Mass Transfer (2009) 45:14231433

Fig. 2 Grids of geometry model

2.4 Boundary conditions

The boundary of the wind-inlet and wind-outlet surfaces
is set as velocity inlet and pressure outlet. Ground and
windbreak wall are set as wall. The chimney, the turbine
room, the boiler room, the support pillars and the hill are
set as solid zones. The HEAT EXCHANGER model
combined with FAN model in the FLUENT software is
used for the air-cooled unit. Equations (1) and (2) are used
for the average heat transfer coefficients and pressure drop,
respectively. The input parameters of the fan are chosen
based on the actual performance curves of the fan supplied
by the manufacturer.
The wind speed distribution across the ground is used
for the inlet velocity profile of the overall computational
zone and is usually expressed as follows
 z k
U

3
U10
10
where U10 is the standard wind speed at the height of 10 m;
z is the height above the ground; U is wind speed at z, and
k is the ground roughness coefficient ranging from 0.125
to 0.25.
2.5 Simulated conditions
To determine a reasonable platform height, four different
platform heights, 22, 25, 28 and 32 m, are simulated under
the most unfavorable operating conditions of the ACSC in
summer when the ambient air temperature is 28C. The
wind speed, U, ranges from 0 to 4 m/s, and the wind
direction angle, b, is in the range of 0180.
After a final platform height is determined, the effects of
different ambient temperatures, wind speeds and wind
directions on both the heat rejection rate of the ACSC and
the steam turbine back pressure are investigated under the
most unfavorable summer condition.

Heat Mass Transfer (2009) 45:14231433

1427

3 Results and discussion

3.1 Effect of wind direction
Figure 3ac shows the velocity and temperature fields of
the air-cooled platform in x, y and z directions for the wind
direction angle b = 0, 45 and 180, respectively. The
height of the air-cooled platform (pillar) is 22 m and the
wind speed is 2.5 m/s. For b = 0, a wake zone is generated behind the boiler and turbine rooms, taking some hot
air flowing out from the ACSC to the fan inlet and
developing a high temperature region below the air-cooled
platform, as shown in Fig. 3a; whereas for a reversed wind
direction of b = 180, the natural wind blows back toward
the boiler and turbine rooms, making the hot air plume turn
to the negative x-direction. There is no wake zone generation and thus there is no obvious hot air recirculation
phenomenon behind the boiler and turbine rooms, resulting
in no large increase of cooling air temperature at the fan

Fig. 3 Velocity and

temperature fields. a b = 0,
b b = 45, c b = 180

inlet, as shown in Fig. 3c. Therefore, the location of the

main factory building has a large effect on the hot air
recirculation for b = 0 and thus can not be neglected in
the simulation of the ACSC performance. The comparison
of Fig. 3a, b and c shows that the wind direction deviated
from the x-direction leads to the excursions of the buoyant
outlet hot air plume from the air-cooled platform in both x
and y directions. The flow direction of hot air accords with
the natural wind direction.
Figure 4 shows the effect of wind directions on the heat
rejection rate of the ACSC. The total heat rejection rate
increases with the increase of the wind direction angle, and
drops to the lowest when b = 0 which accords with the
flow and temperature distributions shown in Fig. 3.
Therefore, b = 0 is the most unfavorable wind direction,
and the main factory building should be arranged on the
windward side of the ACSC with the statistical average
wind speed and frequency on this direction being the
smallest in recent years.

(a)

x-directional profile

y-directional profile

z-directional profile

x-directional profile

y-directional profile

z-directional profile

x-directional profile

y-directional profile

z-directional profile

(b)

(c)

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Heat Mass Transfer (2009) 45:14231433

500

h = 22 m
U = 2.5 m/s

Q (MW)

450

400

429.64 MW
350

45

90

135

180

(o )
Fig. 4 Effect of wind directions on the heat rejection rate

3.2 Effects of wind speed and platform height

Since b = 0 is the most unfavorable wind direction, we
investigate the effects of wind speed and platform height
by fixing the wind direction at b = 0.
Figure 5a and b show the thermal-flow map around the
ACSC for the no wind case at the platform height h = 22
and 32 m, respectively. The ambient cooling air inhaled by
the axial flow fans flows into the ACSC to take heat from
the steam flow inside the finned tubes. The heated air flow
forms a plume rising upward after leaving from the ACSC.
We can see when h [ 22 m, there is no obvious effect of
h on the thermal-flow pattern.
Fig. 5 Flow pattern and
temperature distribution at
U = 0 m/s. a h = 22 m,
b h = 32 m

Figure 6a and b show the thermal-flow map around the

ACSC for the natural wind case with U = 2 m/s at the
platform height h = 22 and 32 m, respectively. The hot air
will be blown by the wind and flows aligned with the wind
direction. At the same time, a low-pressured wake zone
develops in the lee area of the turbine and boiler rooms
because the natural wind blows straightly on the turbine
and boiler rooms. Therefore, some hot air from the vertical
plume is drawn into this low-pressure area again to generate hot air recirculation, which induce an increase of air
temperature at the fan inlet below the ACSC [14]. The hot
air mainly concentrates in the central zone near the turbine
rooms and two corner zones in the lee areas. We can see
that due to the hot air recirculation, the temperatureincreased area at the fan inlet becomes less as h increases
from 22 to 32 m, therefore, a higher platform can improve
the heat transfer performance of the ACSC. Comparison
of the y-direction velocity and temperature profiles shows
that the hot air flow leaving the ACSC turns into a little
divergent plume for the case of no wind, whereas it
becomes a convergent taper for the case of natural wind.
Figure 7 shows the effect of wind speed on total heat
rejection rate at four different platform heights of 22, 25,
28 and 32 m. As the wind speed increases up to 2 m/s, the
total heat rejection rate decreases sharply, and then
decreases slowly with the further increase of wind speed up
to 4 m/s, indicating that there is no remarkable influence on
the total heat rejection rate for the wind speed ranges from
2 to 4 m/s. As the platform is lift up, the heat rejection rate
increases due to the less effect of the hot air recirculation

(a)

x-directional profile

y-directional profile

z-directional profile

x-directional profile

y-directional profile

z-directional profile

(b)

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Heat Mass Transfer (2009) 45:14231433

Fig. 6 Flow pattern and
temperature distribution at
U = 2 m/s. a h = 22 m,
b h = 32 m

1429

(a)

x-directional profile

y-directional profile

z-directional profile

x-directional profile

y-directional profile

z-directional profile

(b)

50

550

=0
h = 22 m
h = 25 m
h = 28 m
h = 32 m
o

429.64 MW

40

Pb (kPa)

Q(MW)

500

450

= 0o

30
400

35 kPa
350

U(m/s)

20

h = 22 m
h = 25 m
h = 28 m
h = 32 m
4

U(m/s)

Fig. 7 Effect of wind speed and platform height on total heat

rejection rate

Fig. 8 Effect of wind speeds on steam turbine back pressure

shown in Fig. 6(b). The heat dissipation can always reach

above the design value of 429.64 MW for h = 32 m.
Figure 8 shows the effect of wind speed on steam turbine back pressure at four different platform heights of 22,
25, 28 and 32 m. The variation trend corresponds to the
heat rejection rate as shown in Fig. 7. The less the heat
rejection rate, the higher the turbine back pressure is. The
turbine back pressure (absolute pressure) increases as the
wind speed increases and decreases as the platform height
increases.
Figure 9 shows the effect of natural wind speed on the
cooling air mass flowrate inhaled by the fans under the aircooled platform at h = 22, 25 and 32 m. The air mass
flowrate q is normalized by that in the ideal no wind case, q0.

In ideal case of no wind, a fan is assumed to work

independently without interference from the others. q/q0
decreases almost linearly with the increase of wind speed,
and the effect of platform height is not so significant. The
comparison between Figs. 7 and 9 shows that the decrease of
q is far less than that of the total heat rejection rate for a given
wind speed, indicating that the decrease of air mass flowrate
is not the dominant factor for the reduction of the total heat
rejection rate, and implying that the main factor is probably
the hot air recirculation.
To present the effect of hot air circulation quantitatively,
Fig. 10 displays the wind speed effect on the increment of
the air temperature at the fan inlet area compared with the
ambient temperature at h = 22, 25, 28 and 32 m. It can be

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Heat Mass Transfer (2009) 45:14231433

hardly affect the thermal-flow field and thus the performance of the ACSC.

=0
h = 22 m
h = 25 m
h = 32 m
o

3.3 Performance of the ACSC and turbine back

pressure under summer condition

q/q0

0.96

0.94

0.92

0.9

U (m/s)
Fig. 9 Effect of wind speeds and platform height on cooling air mass
flowrate

10

Tr (k)

= 0o
h = 22 m
h = 25 m
h = 28 m
h = 32 m

0
0

U(m/s)
Fig. 10 Effect of wind speed and platform height on fan inlet air
temperature rise

seen that the inhaled air temperature increases as the natural wind speed increases, suggesting an increasing hot air
recirculation. The inhaled air temperature decreases as the
platform height increases, indicating that elevating platform height is an effective way to eliminate the effect of
hot air recirculation. These conclusions are in agreement
with the previous analyses and van Rooyen and Krogers
study [9].
In addition, the present numerical simulation investigates the effects of the steep slope to the west of the aircooled platforms and the 180 m high chimney to the east of
the main factory building. The chimney is a very tall and
slender building, and there is no obvious effect on the aircooled platform. The steep slope is much lower than the
main factory building and there is a long distance between
them. Therefore, the chimney and the steep slope can

123

According to the above numerical simulation of the ACSC

performance and steam turbine back pressure at four different platform heights, it is found that the higher the
platform is, the better the ACSC performs. However, the
construction cost will increase greatly with the increase of
the platform height. Considering the performance and the
cost, a compromised platform height of 28 m is finally
determined to be the designed value. Based on this platform height, the effects of ambient wind speed and wind
direction on the performance of the ACSC and the back
pressure of the steam turbine are investigated under the
most unfavourable summer condition.
Figure 11 shows the relationship between the total heat
rejection Q and the natural wind direction angle b with the
wind speed U as a parameter on summer working condition
(TRL). Considering the x-axis symmetry of the air-cooled
platform, the wind direction angle b ranges from 0 to 180.
We can see that as b increases, Q increases rapidly at first,
and then increases slowly for b [ 90. The x-direction
component of the natural wind speed is always positive for
b \ 90, leading to the formation of a low-pressure wake
zone in the backside of the turbine room and thus bringing
about the hot air recirculation, which reduces the total heat
rejection rate of the air-cooled platforms. For b \ 90, the
x-direction component of the natural wind decreases rapidly with the increase of b, reducing the wake zone and
thus weakening the strength of the hot air recirculation,
which increases the total heat rejection rate rapidly. For
b [ 90, the x-direction component of wind is always

500

450

Q (MW)

0.98

400

350

U = 2 m/s
U = 3 m/s
U = 4 m/s
U = 5 m/s
0

45

90

429.64 MW
TRL
135

180

(o )
Fig. 11 Effects of wind speed and direction on total heat rejection
rate

Heat Mass Transfer (2009) 45:14231433

1431

Figure 13a and b show the distribution graph of the heat

rejection rate of the ACSC in summer condition for U = 0
and 3 m/s, respectively. The square column represents the
heat rejection rate of each air-cooled unit. The higher the
square column, the greater the heat rejection rate is. In
the case of no wind, the heat rejection rate of the whole aircooled platforms is 426 MW, and the heat rejection rate of
outer rings air-cooled units is lower than that of inner
ones. In the case of natural wind, the heat rejection rate of
windward air-cooled units is much lower than that of the
others, resulting in a lower total heat rejection rate of
350 MW.
Figure 14a and b show the air mass flowrate inhaled by
the axial fans of different air-cooled units in TRL condition
for U = 0 and 3 m/s, respectively. Each column represents
the air mass flowrate of an air-cooled unit. In the case of no
wind, the total air mass flowrate is 12,225 kg/s, and the air
flowrates of the fans in the outermost ring of the air-cooled
units are lower than those of the inner fans. This is because
the fans in the outermost ring inhale the static air from the
outside surroundings, resulting in a heavier burden than
those in the inner units. In the case of no wind, there is no
obvious hot air circulation, so the reduction of the total heat
rejection rate mostly results from the decrease of air mass
flowrate inhaled by the fans in the outermost ring of the aircooled platform. For a fan working independently without
interference from other fans, the inhaled air mass flowrate
is 390 kg/s in the present study. Therefore, the total air
mass flowrate will be 12,480 kg/s for 32 fans. In the ideal
case of no wind without obvious hot air recirculation, the
heat rejection rate is mainly affected by the cooling air
mass flowrate and is 426 9 12,480/12,225 = 434 MW. So
the heat transfer capacity is about 2% lower than that in the
ideal case at U = 0 m/s due to the reduction of air mass
flowrate of the fans in the outermost ring of the air-cooled
units. In the case of natural wind, the air mass flowrate of
the fans in the windward air cooled units is much lower
than that of the others, resulting in a much lower value of
11,756 kg/s and a corresponding heat transfer reduction of

40

U = 2 m/s
U = 3 m/s
U = 4 m/s
U = 5 m/s

TRL
35 Kpa

Pb (kPa)

35

30

90

135

180

(o )
Fig. 12 Relationship of turbine back pressure with wind speed and
direction

negative, and there is no obvious wake zone in the space

between the turbine room and the air cooled platform,
resulting in no remarkable hot air recirculation. It can also
be seen from Fig. 11 that the total heat rejection rate of the
air-cooled platforms decreases with increasing wind speed.
It should be noted that for the wind speed range studied
here, the decrease of the total heat rejection rate is not so
remarkable with the increase of wind speed. However,
when the wind speed is greater than 10 m/s, the natural
wind will severely reduce the air mass flowrate at the fan
inlet, which will reduce the heat rejection rate significantly.
Figure 12 shows the relationship between the steam
turbine back pressure Pb and the natural wind direction
angle b with the wind speed U as a parameter on summer
working condition (TRL). Corresponding to the heat
rejection rate shown in Fig. 11, Pb decreases rapidly at first
as b rises for b \ 90, and then levels off. While Pb can be
always kept at the normal value of 35 kPa for U = 2 m/s,
it becomes higher than 35 kPa for b \ 30 when U
increases up to 5 m/s. Therefore, it should be careful to
adjust the turbine back pressure accordingly under these
critical conditions to avoid turbine trips.

(b) 1.75

1.75

1.50

1.50

7
q(10 W)

(a)

7
q(10 W)

Fig. 13 Heat rejection rate

distribution of air-cooled units
on summer condition. a No
wind (U = 0 m/s), b U = 3 m/s

1.25

1.25

5
4
1.00

3
2

Colu

mn

2
5

1
7

3
1.00

2
3
Colu 4
mn

1
6

Ro
w

45

Ro

25

123

1432

Heat Mass Transfer (2009) 45:14231433

Fig. 14 Air mass flowrate

distribution of air-cooled units
on summer condition. a No
wind (U = 0 m/s), b U = 3 m/s

(a)

(b)
400

400

Q(kg/s)

Q(kg/s)

375

350

350

325
4

4
3

3
2

2
3
Colu 4
mn

1
6

426 - 426 9 11,756/12,225 = 16.3 MW. As shown in

Fig. 13, the total heat transfer reduction is 426 - 350 =
76 MW. Therefore, besides the reduction of the cooling
air mass flowrate, the hot air recirculation also plays
an important role in decreasing heat transfer performance, leading to a corresponding heat transfer reduction
of 76 - 16.3 = 59.7 MW. It is obvious that the hot air
recirculation is the main factor responsible for the reduction of heat rejection rate.
For both no wind and natural wind cases, the influences
on edge fans of the air-cooled platforms are greater than
inner fans. If the power of outermost ring fans is increased
and the other fans are kept to be constant, the cooling air
mass flowrate will be increased effectively and better heat
exchange efficiency will be obtained [15].

3.

4.

300 1

3
Colu 4 5
mn

2
6

1
7

Ro
w

Ro
w

300

The impact of wind speed on the windward fringe fans

of the air-cooled platform is larger than that on the
other fans, resulting in a reduced inhaled air mass
flowrate and thus a decreased heat transfer performance of the ACSC. This effect should not be
neglected in the simulation.
The direct factors affecting the ACSC performance are
hot air recirculation and the reduction of cooling air
flowrate through the axial flow fan, and the former
shows a dominant effect due to the existence of the
main factory building on the windward side of the
ACSC. The effect of main factory building should be
considered in the simulation.

Acknowledgments We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the NSFC Fund (No. 10602043, 50821604, 50876114).

4 Conclusions
References
Numerical simulation of the thermal-flow characteristics and
the heat transfer performance is made of an ACSC in a
2 9 135 MW thermal power plant by considering the effects
of ambient wind speed and direction, the air-cooled platform
height, and the location of the main factory building and
terrain condition. The main conclusions are as follows:
1.

2.

The performance of the ACSC and the corresponding

steam turbine back pressure decreases with the
increase of wind speed and increases as the platform
height is elevated.
The ACSC performance increases and the corresponding steam turbine back pressure decreases rapidly with
the increase of wind direction angle up to a critical
value, and then both levels off. The critical wind
direction angle is dependent on the platform height.
The lower the platform, the larger the critical wind
direction angle is. The relationship of the turbine back
pressure with the wind speed and direction can be used
for adjusting the running back pressure of the steam
turbine to prevent turbine trips.

123

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