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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

EPRI research on cooling tower performance

Conference ·
OSTI ID:5162866

One of the primary goals of EPRI's Heat, Waste and Water Management Program is to improve the ability of the utility industry to predict and test the performance of power plant cooling systems. The object of this work is to develop improved methods and tools that will aid the industry in specifying cooling systems, evaluating bids, performing retrofitting studies, and testing system thermal performance. Current work includes research on once-through systems, cooling ponds and lakes, and wet and dry cooling towers. This paper describes research on conventional evaporative cooling towers. The effort includes the construction of a laboratory-scale fill test facility and performance evaluation of counterflow and crossflow fill configurations at both laboratory scale and full scale. Experimental data are being analyzed both by conventional methods and more recent methods of performance prediction developed at EPRI and elsewhere. The paper includes a summary of the experimental and analytical program.

OSTI ID:
5162866
Report Number(s):
CONF-840238-
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English