Effect of Cooling Water Flow Path on the Flow and Heat Transfer in a 660 MW Power Plant Condenser

The effect of the cooling water flow path on the flow and heat transfer in a double tube-pass condenser for a 660 MW power plant unit was numerically investigated based on a porous medium model. The results were used to analyze the streamline, velocity, air mass fraction and heat transfer coefficient distributions. The simulations indicate that the cooling water flow path is important in large condensers. For the original tube arrangement, the heat transfer with the lower-upper cooling water flow path is better than that with the upper-lower cooling water flow path. The reason is that the steam cannot flow into the internal of upper tube bundle and the air fractions are higher in the upper tube bundle with the upper-lower cooling water flow path. An improvement tube arrangement was developed for the upper-lower cooling water flow path which reduced the back pressure by 0.47 kPa compared to the original scheme. Thus, the results show that the tube arrangements should differ for different cooling water flow paths and the condenser heat transfer can be improved for the upper-lower cooling water flow path by modifying the tube arrangement.