• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.39-48
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• 2002

Cooling towers water has frequently been known as a source of infection in outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease and a source of indoor air pollution. However, there have been a few reports on the presence of Legionella in cooling towers water and aerosols of various public facilities. This study was carried out to investigate the indoor and outdoor dis-tribution of Legionella spp and microbe from 132 cooling towers water of public facilities detected 1. pneumophila in Seoul and Gyeonggi-Do areas. The results showed that the Lpneumophila among the selected 132 cooling towers was detected mostly in July (12.0%), followed by August (4.0%) and June, September no-detected. The 1. pneumophiia in public facilities was detected mostly in department store (27.3%), followed by hospital (8.7%), office building (5.9%), big market (5.0%) and hotel, subway no-detected. The pH values of cooling towers water with presence of 1. pneumophila showed mostly 8.0 or higher (9.5%), followed by 7.0～8.0 (6.8%), lower 7.0 no-detected. The tem-perature of cooling towers water with presence of L pnemophila showed mostly 30℃ or higher (9.8%), followed by 26～30℃ (6.9%), lower 25℃ no-detected. The turbidity of cooling towers water with presence of 1. pneumaphila showed mostly 1-2 M (8.8%), followed by above 2 NTU (5.9%), lower 1 NTU no-detected. The correlation coef-ficient between indoor and outdoor concentration of microbes in public facilities showed 0.67 in Legionella spy. (p>0.05), 0.93 in bacteria (p<0.01), 0.94 in fungus (p<0.01), 0.98 in coilform (p<0.01), respectively.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.299-313
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• 2019

In order to examine the effects of different wind deflectors on the wind load distribution characteristics of extra-large cooling towers, a comparative study of the distribution characteristics of wind pressures on the surface of three large cooling towers with typical wind deflectors and one tower without wind deflector was conducted using wind tunnel tests. These characteristics include aerodynamic parameters such as mean wind pressures, fluctuating wind pressures, peak factors, correlation coefficients, extreme wind pressures, drag coefficients and vorticity distribution. Then distribution regularities of different wind deflectors on global and local wind pressure of extra-large cooling towers was extracted, and finally the fitting formula of extreme wind pressure of the cooling towers with different wind deflectors was provided. The results showed that the large eddy simulation (LES) method used in this article could be used to accurately simulate wind loads of such extra-large cooling towers. The three typical wind deflectors could effectively reduce the average wind pressure of the negative pressure extreme regions in the central part of the tower, and were also effective in reducing the root of the variance of the fluctuating wind pressure in the upper-middle part of the windward side of the tower, with the curved air deflector showing particularly. All the different wind deflectors effectively reduced the wind pressure extremes of the middle and lower regions of the windward side of the tower and of the negative pressure extremes region, with the best effect occurring in the curved wind deflector. After the wind deflectors were installed the drag coefficient values of each layer of the middle and lower parts of the tower were significantly higher than that without wind deflector, but the effect on the drag coefficients of layers above the throat was weak. The peak factors for the windward side, the side and leeward side of the extra-large cooling towers with different wind deflectors were set as 3.29, 3.41 and 3.50, respectively.

• Advances in Energy Research
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.147-166
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• 2020

Industrial cooling towers are often ageing infrastructure that is expensive to maintain and operate. A novel approach is introduced in which a heat pump circuit is incorporated to reduce the load upon the towers by extracting low-grade energy from the stream sent to the towers and repurposing in on-site processing operations. To demonstrate the concept, a model was constructed, which uses industrial data on cooling towers linked to a smelter's sulphuric acid plant, to allow direct economic and environmental impact comparison between different heat recovery and repurposing scenarios. The model's results showed that implementing a heat pump system would significantly decrease annual operating costs and achieve a payback period of 3 years. In addition, overall CO₂ emissions could be reduced by 42% (430,000 kg/year) and a 5% heat load reduction on the cooling towers achieved. The concept is significant as the outcomes introduce a new way for energy intensive industrial sectors, such as mineral processing, to reduce energy consumption and improve long-term sustainable performance.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.54 no.5
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• pp.891-908
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• 2015

For a systematic study on wind-induced vibration characteristics of large hyperbolic cooling towers with different feature sizes, the pressure measurement tests are finished on the rigid body models of three representative cooling towers with the height of 155 m, 177 m and 215 m respectively. Combining the refined frequency-domain algorithm of wind-induced responses, the wind-induced average response, resonant response, background response, coupling response and wind vibration coefficients of large cooling towers with different feature sizes are obtained. Based on the calculating results, the parametric analysis on wind-induced vibration of cooling towers is carried out, e.g. the feature sizes, damping ratio and the interference effect of surrounding buildings. The discussion shows that the increase of feature sizes makes wind-induced average response and fluctuating response larger correspondingly, and the proportion of resonant response also gradually increased, but it has little effect on the wind vibration coefficient. The increase of damping ratio makes resonant response and the wind vibration coefficient decreases obviously, which brings about no effect on average response and background response. The interference effect of surrounding buildings makes the fluctuating response and wind vibration coefficient increased significantly, furthermore, the increase ranges of resonant response is greater than background response.

• Computational Structural Engineering : An International Journal
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.25-32
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• 2002

Natural draught cooling towers often develop visible crack structures as consequences of progressive damage processes over their life-time. The aim of this paper is a numerical demonstration of the progressive damage process of cooling towers, representatively for the reinforced concrete structures, in order to improve the durability and extend the life-time of structures subjected to such damage processes. For the analyses, the applied material model for reinforced concrete will be briefly introduced. An existing natural draught cooling tower with a pronounced crack structure, in which this crack structure indicates the typical damage pattern of large cooling towers will be numerically simulated. The change of dynamical behavior of the structure with regard to natural frequencies, reflecting the global damage process due to the degrading stiffness of the structure in dependence of the load type and intensity, will be presented and discussed.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.1-17
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• 2019

Internal ring beams are primary components of new ring-stiffened cooling towers. In this study, numerical simulation of the internal flow field of a cooling tower with three ring beams under wind-thermal coupling effect is performed. The studied cooling tower is a 220-m super-large hyperbolic indirect natural draft cooling tower that is under construction in China and will be the World's highest cooling tower, the influence of peripheral radiators in operating cooling tower is also considered. Based on the simulation, the three-dimensional effect and distribution pattern of the wind loads on inner surface of the cooling tower is summarized, the average wind pressure distributions on the inner surface before and after the addition of the ring beams are analyzed, and the influence pattern of ring beams on the internal pressure coefficient value is derived. The action mechanisms behind the air flows inside the tower are compared. In addition, the effects of internal ring beams on temperature field characteristics, turbulence kinetic energy distribution, and wind resistance are analyzed. Finally, the internal pressure coefficients are suggested for ring-stiffened cooling towers under wind-thermal coupling effect. The study shows that the influence of internal stiffening ring beams on the internal pressure and flow of cooling towers should not be ignored, and the wind-thermal coupling effect should also be considered in the numerical simulation of cooling tower flow fields. The primary conclusions presented in this paper offer references for determining the internal suction of such ring-stiffened cooling towers.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.101-129
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• 2017

Local transient extreme wind loads caused by group tower-related interference are among the major reasons that lead to wind-induced damage of super-large cooling towers. Four-tower arrangements are the most commonly seen patterns for super-large cooling towers. We considered five typical four-tower arrangements in engineering practice, namely, single row, rectangular, rhombic, L-shaped, and oblique L-shaped. Wind tunnel tests for rigid body were performed to determine the influence of different arrangements on static and dynamic wind loads and extreme interference effect. The most unfavorable working conditions (i.e., the largest overall wind loads) were determined based on the overall aerodynamic coefficient under different four-tower arrangements. Then we calculated the one-, two- and three-dimensional aerodynamic loads under different four-tower arrangements. Statistical analyses were performed on the wind pressure signals in the amplitude and time domains under the most unfavorable working conditions. On this basis, the non-Gaussian distribution characteristics of aerodynamic loads on the surface of the cooling towers under different four-tower arrangements were analyzed. We applied the Sadek-Simiu procedure to the calculation of two- and three-dimensional aerodynamic loads in the cooling towers under the four-tower arrangements, and the extreme wind load distribution patterns under the most unfavorable working conditions in each arrangement were compared. Finally, we proposed a uniform equation for fitting the extreme wind loads under the four-tower arrangements; the accuracy and reliability of the equation were verified. Our research findings will contribute to the optimization of the four-tower arrangements and the determination of extreme wind loads of super-large cooling towers.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.443-465
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• 2014

Hyperbolic thin-shell cooling towers have complicated vibration modes, and are very sensitive to the effects of group towers and wind-induced vibrations. Traditional aero-elastic models of cooling towers are usually designed based on the method of stiffness simulation by continuous medium thin shell materials. However, the method has some shortages in actual engineering applications, so the so-called "equivalent beam-net design method" of aero-elastic models of cooling towers is proposed in the paper and an aero-elastic model with a proportion of 1: 200 based on the method above with integrated pressure measurements and vibration measurements has been designed and carried out in TJ-3 wind tunnel of Tongji university. According to the wind tunnel test, this paper discusses the impacts of self-excited force effect on the surface wind pressure of a large-scale cooling tower and the results show that the impact of self-excited force on the distribution characteristics of average surface wind pressure is very small, but the impact on the form of distribution and numerical value of fluctuating wind pressure is relatively large. Combing with the Complete Quadratic Combination method (hereafter referred to as CQC method), the paper further studies the numerical sizes and distribution characteristics of background components, resonant components, cross-term components and total fluctuating wind-induced vibration responses of some typical nodes which indicate that the resonance response is dominant in the fluctuating wind-induced vibration response and cross-term components are not negligible for wind-induced vibration responses of super-large cooling towers.

• Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.1-6
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• 2002

This study was carried out to investigate the distribution of Legionella spp and microbe from cooling towers water of Public establishments in Seoul and Gyeonggi-Do. As results of this study, the cooling tower 132 sites were detecting L. pneumophila in order to July(12%) > August (14%) > June, September no-detected. The public establishments were detecting L. pneumophila in order to Department store(27.3%) > Hospital(8.7%) > Office(5.9%) > Big Mart(5.0%) > Hotel, Subway no-detected. The correlation coefficient pH and L.pneumophila showed 0.62(p=0.05), 0.27(p=0.45) in temperature and L.pheumophila, 0.40(p=0.25) in turbidity and L.pneumophila.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.53-70
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• 2003

The motivation of this paper is to introduce the modern technology of large-scale cooling tower design. Thereby the innovative design concept for the world's largest cooling tower with a height of 200 m is briefly presented (Harte & Kr$\ddot{a}$tzig 2002, Bush et al. 2002). The new concept was considered not only for safety, but also for preservation of the durability of the structure, because cracking damage in large cooling towers in general cause extremely high cost of maintenance and repair. The paper demonstrates numerically the damage process in large cooling towers (Kr$\ddot{a}$tzig et al. 2001), and describes some basics of the numerical finite element approach for damage propagation modelling of shell structure. A prototype is analysed to trace the progressive damage process, whereby the changes in the dynamical behaviour of the structure, as mirrored in its natural frequencies and the corresponding mode shapes, are presented and discussed. Finally, the example shows that such damage processes develop progressively over the life-time of the shell structure.