Abstract
As direct dry-cooling systems are becoming more popular for thermal power plants, there is a demand to increase the flexibility of the application and performance of these cooling systems. A novel hybrid (dry/wet) dephlegmator (HDWD) cooling system is being developed, and at this stage in the development of the HDWD, the performance analysis and optimization of the HDWD is currently subject to uncertainties in a number of parameters. One of the parameters is the confidence in the correlations to predict the steam-side pressure drop over the wide range of full to partial condensation conditions expected in the system as a result of the design. This study makes use of an experimental apparatus to measure steam pressure drop over a range of partial to full condensation inside a circular horizontal tube. The experiment is conducted by measuring the steam flow and steam pressure drop in a horizontal primary condenser tube with the presence of a secondary condenser tube. The primary condenser has a tube length of 2.5 m and an inside tube diameter of 19.3 mm similar to the proposed HDWD design. Existing correlations for pressure drop in condensing flow are compared with the results to assess the applicability of the correlations for the HDWD case. It was found that the correlation of Lockhart and Martinelli’s with the Chisholm parameter fits the experimental data the best with a mean error of ±15.6%. A parametric study also indicated that there is a prominent increase in the frictional pressure drop at low partial condensation ratios (i.e., high steam through flow) as expected with wave drag at the vapor and condensate interface due to the difference in velocity.
