Ambient crosswinds adversely affect the cooling performance of natural draft dry cooling towers (NDDCTs)

particularly for the windward tower within a group. Investigating the flow field improvement measures for the windward tower under ambient crosswind conditions and their impact on the cooling performance of both the windward and leeward towers is of great significance for optimizing the layout of indirect cooling tower groups and mitigating tower group effects. This paper establishes a three-dimensional numerical model for the air-side flow and heat transfer of the NDDCTs group in a 2×660 MW unit

integrating external and internal flow field improvement measures i.e. the louver air deflector around tower and the air-side flow equalization devices inside cooling triangles. The paper studies the improving mechanism of the internal and external flow field synergy on the aerodynamic and thermal characteristics of the windward tower under the impact of crosswind and unit loads within a tower group. The results demonstrate that the internal and external flow field optimization significantly enhances the cooling performance of the windward tower under crosswind conditions. When the ambient crosswind speed is 2.9 m/s and the unit load is 100%

the addition of the internal and external synergistic aerodynamic field optimization devices can lower the outlet water temperature of the windward tower and leeward tower by 0.964℃ and 0.628℃

respectively. In conclusion

synergistic optimization of internal and external aerodynamic fields in windward tower can effectively suppress the adverse cooling performance impacts induced by ambient crosswind on the windward tower and leeward tower among towers.