Plant Vogtle cooling tower studies

摘要

Intensive ground-based field studies of plumes from two large, natural-draft cooling towers were conducted in support of the MTI modeling effort. Panchromatic imagery, IR imagery, meteorological data, internal tower temperatures and plant power data were collected during the field studies. These data were used to evaluate plume simulations, plume radioactive transfer calculations and plume volume estimation algorithms used for power estimation. Results from six field studies indicate that a 3-D atmospheric model at sufficient spatial resolution can effectively simulate a cooling tower plume if the plume is of sufficient size and the ambient meteorology is known and steady. Small plumes and gusty wind conditions degrade the agreement between the simulated and observed plumes. Thermal radiance calculations based on the simulated plumes produced maximum IR temperatures (near tower exit) which were in good agreement with measured IR temperatures for the larger plumes. For the smaller plumes, the calculated IR temperature was lower than the measured temperature by several degrees. Variations in maximum IR plume temperature with decreasing power (one reactor was undergoing a shutdown process), were clearly observed in the IR imagery and seen in the simulations. These temperature changes agreed with those calculated from an overall tower energy and momentum balance. Plume volume estimates based on camcorder images at three look angles were typically 20--30 percent larger than the plume volumes derived from the simulations, although one estimate was twice the simulated volume. Volume overestimation is expected and will have to be accounted for to some degree if plume volume is to be a useful diagnostic quantity in power estimation. Volume estimation with MTI imagery will require a large, stable plume and two looks in the visible bands (5m GSD) along with a solar shadow.