Rapid Temperature Reduction of Thermal Discharge

The temperature of a heated effluent stream, discharging from a thermoelectric power station, can be reduced by introducing a tempering water flow in the discharge channel upstream from the receiving body. This laboratory model study investigates the possibility of increasing the rate of temperature reduction by optimizing the mixing process between two different temperature streams. The hydraulic jump is used as the mixing agent and results obtained are compared with the corresponding standard dilution method of entrainment of the coolant by jet-induced turbulence. With regard to location of the jump the standard prediction techniques proved inadequate in the study configuration. Temperature distributions were observed throughout the flow field in order to investigate mixing efficiency. Records indicated that the tempering and effluent flows were completely mixed by the jumps. Comparison of the standard and study dilution methods showed that the latter required a much shorter length of channel for complete mixing of the two streams.