• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.815-824
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• 2022

Among the main facilities of the power plant, the circulating water used for cooling the power generation system is supplied through the Circulation Water Intake Basin (CWIB). The vortexes of various types generated in the Pump Sump (PS) of CWIB adversely affect the Circulation Water Pump (CWP) and pipelines. In particular, the free surface vortex accompanied by air intake brings about vibration, noise, cavitation etc. and these are the causes of degradation of CWP performance, damage to pipelines. Then power generation is interrupted by the causes. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the hydraulic characteristics of CWIB through the hydraulic model experiment and apply an appropriate Anti Vortex Device (AVD) that can control the vortex to enable smooth operation of the power plant. In general, free surface vortex is controlled by Curtain Wall (CW) and the submerged vortex is by the anti vortex device of the curtain wall. The detailed specifications are described in the American National Standard for Pump Intake Design. In this study, the circulating water intake part of the Tripoli West 4×350 MW power plant in Libya was targeted, the actual operating conditions were applied, and the vortex reduction effect of the anti vortex device generated in the suction tank among the circulating water intake part was analyzed through a hydraulic model experiment. In addition, a floor splitter was basically applied to control the submerged vortex, and a new type of column curtain wall was additionally applied to control the vortex generated on the free surface to confirm the effect. As a result of analyzing the hydraulic characteristics by additionally applying the newly developed Column Curtain Wall (CCW) to the existing curtain wall, we have found that the vortex was controlled by forming a uniform flow. In addition, the vortex angle generated in the circulating water pump pipeline was 5° or less, which is the design standard of ANSI/HI 9.8, confirming the stability of the flow.