Comparative Study on the Cooling Characteristics of Different Fill Layout Patterns on a Single Air Inlet Induced Draft Cooling Tower

To enhance the cooling capacity of a single air inlet induced draft cooling tower (SIDCT), the stepped fill layout pattern is proposed in this paper. A three-dimensional numerical model is established and validated by field measurement data. The cooling capacity of towers equipped with uniform fill and stepped fill is compared under various crosswind velocities (0 m/s–12 m/s) and crosswind angles (0°–180°). The results showed that the ventilation rate of the total tower with stepped fill is increased. Under the studied crosswind velocity and angle, the cooling capacity of the stepped fill tower is superior to the uniform fill tower. After using stepped fill, the mean drop of outlet water temperature rises by 0.29 °C, 0.27 °C, 0.17 °C, 0.10 °C, and 0.19 °C, corresponding to crosswind angles from 0° to 180°. The increment of cooling capacity is the maximum under the crosswind angles of 0° and 45° and is the minimum under the crosswind angles of 90° and 135°. The maximum increased value of N is 0.65 under the crosswind velocity of 4 m/s, 0.85 under 8 m/s, and 0.95 under 12 m/s.