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In the present work, constructal design of annular finned tube has been studied. Geometrical parameters include fin diameter, fin thickness, fin pitch, tube outer diameter, tube length while physical parameters involve pressure drop number, Stanton number, fin-to-air conductivity ratio, and in-tube fluid-to- air conductivity ratio. The aim of this study is to enhance heat transfer by letting the geometrical degrees of freedom to morph. It was observed that at certain flow conditions, there exist optimal geometry and fin number for the finned tube construct in which its thermal resistance is minimum. Fin efficiency and tube-side convective heat transfer coefficient are higher at low pressure drops and Stanton numbers. In these conditions, analytical relationships were proposed to predict optimal heat transfer, optimal fin number and optimal geometry. It was seen that the optimal fin thickness-to-fin pitch ratio is merely dependent on the fin volume fraction; and it rises with the increase in fin volume fraction. Moreover, the optimum fin number is directly proportional to fin spacing – to- fin pitch ratio and inversely proportional to Stanton number. Furthermore, it was seen that in the range of parameters considered in this study, the tube with 3400 fins and aspect ratio of 0.63 has the most heat transfer rate.

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Wet cooling towers have a high cooling capacity. However, owing to consumption of large water quantities in wet cooling towers, using them in arid regions facing water resource crisis might cause operational problems. In this research, changing the wet cooling tower of unit 5 of Isfahan Islamabad power plant into a hybrid cooling tower, using parallel path wet/dry configuration is studied. The hybrid cooling tower with the recommended configuration causes minimal changes in the other power plant facilities and has a low construction cost. Two different airflow control systems are investigated for the wet and hybrid cooling towers. In the first system, the amount of airflow rate in the cooling tower is adjusted by means of switching tower ID fans on or off. In the second system, an optimum airflow control mechanism with high-tech fans is devised. The results reveal that the optimum airflow control system is more suitable than the other system, due to less water consumption, preventing the sudden fluctuations of airflow and consequently water consumption rates and less fan power consumption. Experimental data and results obtained by the HTFS software are used for validating the simulated results of the wet cooling tower and air-cooled heat exchangers, respectively. The results demonstrate that the annual amount of water conservation due to changing the wet cooling tower into hybrid tower is approximately 343830 and 348718 cubic meters for fan switching and optimum airflow control systems, respectively.