Simulation of heat and mass transfer processes in the experimental section of the air-condensing unit of Scientific Production Company “Turbocon”

A mathematical model was developed to be used for numerical analysis of heat and mass transfer processes in the experimental section of the air condenser (ESAC) created in the Scientific Production Company (SPC) “Turbocon” and mounted on the territory of the All-Russia Thermal Engineering Institute. The simulations were performed using the author’s CFD code ANES. The verification of the models was carried out involving the experimental data obtained in the tests of ESAC. The operational capability of the proposed models to calculate the processes in steam–air mixture and cooling air and algorithms to take into account the maldistribution in the various rows of tube bundle was shown. Data on the influence of temperature and flow rate of the cooling air on the pressure in the upper header of ESAC, effective heat transfer coefficient, steam flow distribution by tube rows, and the dimensions of the ineffectively operating zones of tube bundle for two schemes of steam–air mixture flow (one-pass and two-pass ones) were presented. It was shown that the pressure behind the turbine (in the upper header) increases significantly at increase of the steam flow rate and reduction of the flow rate of cooling air and its temperature rise, and the maximum value of heat transfer coefficient is fully determined by the flow rate of cooling air. Furthermore, the steam flow rate corresponding to the maximum value of heat transfer coefficient substantially depends on the ambient temperature. The analysis of the effectiveness of the considered schemes of internal coolant flow was carried out, which showed that the two-pass scheme is more effective because it provides lower pressure in the upper header, despite the fact that its hydraulic resistance at fixed flow rate of steam–air mixture is considerably higher than at using the one-pass schema. This result is a consequence of the fact that, in the two-pass scheme, the condensation process involves the larger internal surface of tubes, results in lower values of Δt (the temperature difference between internal and external coolant) for a given heat load.