Influence of three different pitches fillings on the cooling performance of wet cooling towers under crosswind

For a super-large wet cooling tower, the three-dimensional numerical model is established and verified for three different pitches fillings consisting of 20 mm S-wave, 26 mm S-wave and 30 mm oblique folded wave fillings. The research obtains the relatively optimal fillings layout with three different pitches and analyzes the influence of three different pitches fillings on the performance of the wet cooling tower under windless and crosswind. The findings show that three different pitches fillings can improve the distribution of air dynamic and temperature fields inside the tower. For the wind speed of v = 5 m/s, the inner zone radius (R′1) of 37.5 m and the middle ring width (R′2) of 10 m is the relatively optimal fillings layout with three different pitches, in which the water temperature drop and cooling efficiency are 10.5 °C and 60.91%, respectively. Compared with 20 mm uniform fillings, the water temperature drop, cooling efficiency, ventilation and evaporation loss increase by about 0.20 °C, 1.1%, 552 kg/s and 8.9 kg/s, respectively. Additionally, the relatively optimal fillings with three different pitches can significantly increase the cooling capacity of the wet cooling tower under windless and wind speeds v = 1–6 m/s.