Russian-made cooling towers for Belarusian nuclear power plant

The Belarusian nuclear power plant will use cooling towers of Russian design. The possibility of fitting them with aerodynamic vortex generators of Belarusian design is being considered, BelTA learned from Sergei Fisenko, Leading Researcher of the A.V. Lykov Heat and Mass Transfer Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, after the 16th international conference on cooling towers and heat-transfer equipment. The event took place in Minsk on 30 September – 2 October.

Presented at the conference, the project provides that two power-generating units of the Belarusian nuclear power plant will have two cooling towers with reinforced concrete shells as high as 167m, with the base diameter of 128m and the irrigated area of 11,400m2 each. The cooling towers have been designed by the Saint Petersburg-based research and design institute Atomenergoproekt. Atomenergoproekt’s designs have been used to build hundreds of cooling towers for heat power plants and nuclear power plants in Russia and in ex-USSR republics. In addition to the cooling towers in Ostrovets, where the Belarusian nuclear power plant is being built, Atomenergoproekt’s cooling tower designs are used to build cooling towers for the second Leningrad nuclear power plant.

According to Sergei Fisenko, the equipment of the large cooling towers like those of the Belarusian nuclear power plant with aerodynamic vortex generators will allow increasing the performance of the cooling towers and the power efficiency of the nuclear power plant itself.

The aerodynamic vortex generators of Belarusian design are widely used for modernizing cooling towers of Belarusian cogeneration plants because they allow saving about $100,000 per annum per tower. The equipment has been installed at cogeneration plants No. 3 and 4 in Minsk and at cogeneration plant No. 2 in Grodno where Belarus’ largest cooling towers are located. The aerodynamic vortex generators have made Belarus well-known among designers and manufacturers of cooling equipment for heat power plants and other industrial installations. Companies and research institutes from China and Australia show an interest in joint projects with Belarusian scientists.

Organized by the A.V. Lykov Heat and Mass Transfer Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus and the International Association of Hydraulic Research, the 16th international conference on cooling towers and heat-transfer equipment has gathered participants from 18 countries, including Russia, China, Germany, South Africa, Austria, Japan, France, Czechia, and the USA in Minsk.