Why is climate data and total hours available for evaporative cooling necessary to determine increased turbine output and efficiency??
Evaporative cooling efficiency is a direct result of at least three (3) major factors; (1) Wet bulb depression which is the difference between dry bulb and wet bulb temperatures, (2) cooling media saturation efficiency which is the percent of the wet bulb depression realized in temperature drop and (3) the “uniform” face velocity of the air flow which is to say that the air flow should be the same velocity “at any point” on the cooling media. In order to accurately predict the outcome of adding wetted media evaporative cooling of the inlet air, the wet bulb depression must be known across the spectrum of temperature ranges. It is not sufficient to use the “design condition” only to predict performance increase. Click here to go to a sample climate report for Houston, Texas. You will note that there are 7685 hours available for evaporative cooling with discharge temperatures above 400(f). These hours are available provided that the saturation efficiency of 12″ thick cooling media is a m
