Numerical study of a power plant condenser tube arrangement

The flow and heat transfer performance of a power plant condenser for a 300 MW unit was numerically analyzed using a porous medium model. Three typical tube arrangements were considered. The analysis indicates that none of these three tube arrangements satisfies the Heat Exchange Institute Standards (HEI Standards) with lower overall average heat transfer coefficients in the condenser and higher back pressures. A new tube arrangement was developed based on the modeling results for the velocity, heat transfer coefficient and air mass fraction distributions in the condenser. This tube arrangement gives better condenser performance than the HEI Standards.