This paper presents thermal characteristics analysis of a modified Closed Wet Cooling Tower (CWCT) based on heat and mass transfer principles to improve the performance of this tower in Iraq. A prototype of CWCT optimized by added packing was designed, manufactured and tested for cooling capacity of 9 kW. Experiments are conducted to explore the effects of various operational and conformational parameters on the thermal performance. In the test section, spray water temperature and both dry bulb temperature and relative humidity of the air measured at intermediate points of the heat exchanger and packing. Heat exchangers consist of four rows and eight columns for an inline tubes arrangement and six rows and five columns for staggered tubes arrangement. According to experimental data, the inline tubes arrangement has a better thermal performance than the staggered tubes arrangement. The inline tubes arrangement enhanced thermal efficiency more than (7%) compared to the staggered tubes arrangement. Furthermore the effect of added packing to CWCT on thermal performance was significant compared to CWCT without packing. Comparing CWCT with packing, it has been observed that the best performance for the CWCT with packing under heat exchanger. It can be watched that the thermal efficiency for CWCT with packing under heat exchanger and CWCT with packing above heat exchanger approximately (28%) and (16%) higher than that CWCT without packing respectively. This study provides correlations to predict heat and mass transfer considering the influences of operational parameters for both inline and staggered heat exchanger tubes arrangement.
