Evaluation of methods for prediction of evaporation from water pools

Abstract

Calculation of evaporation is needed in many applications including swimming pools, water reservoirs, nuclear fuel pools, pools for rejection of heat from refrigeration systems, process tanks, etc. Hence accurate methods for prediction of evaporation are needed. Many prediction methods have been published including analytical models and empirical correlations. In the present study, 18 published prediction methods are compared to a very wide-ranging database which includes data from laboratory scale studies, swimming pools, and fuel pools in nuclear power plants. The data are from 25 sources. The range of data includes air temperatures from 6°C to 200°C, water temperatures from 7.1°C to 94.2°C, relative humidity from 0.21% to 98%, and air velocity from 0 to 8.5 m/s. The accuracy of prediction methods is examined for conditions in which natural convection dominates, that in which forced convection dominates, and that in which natural convection is absent. The results are reported and discussed. Recommendations are made for application.

Water and Energy Sustainability of Swimming Pools: A Case Model on the Costa Brava, Catalonia

“…This challenge is increased in the current context of the drought crisis in Catalonia, a phenomenon that, influenced by climate change, is expected to become more recurrent in the future. It is important to bear in mind that the various simulation models for predicting the amount of water lost through evaporation are empirical, with key environmental parameters [3,41,[49][50][51][52][53][54][55].…”

“…For pool evaporation modeling in academia, as already indicated in the literature review section, several predictive models of water evaporation in pools and other bodies of surface water, based on experimental data, have been recognized [50][51][52][54][55][56]. It is important to note that the various simulation models aimed at predicting the amount of water lost through evaporation are based on empirical approaches.…”

“…During drought periods, such as the current one, concerns in the hotel sector increase and the will of the sector is to mitigate the effects of the drought, in line with government regulations [23]. To tackle the problems arising from pool water balance and water evaporation (with a high evaporation rate due to climate change), simulation models are applied to predict the amount of water lost through evaporation, as a key environmental parameter [3,42,[50][51][52][53][54][55][56].…”

“…Consequently, the water and energy challenges of swimming pools are increasingly being assessed [2,9,62]. In particular, research at the energy level focuses on filtration during recirculation and disinfection for the healthiness of the pool; others concern water stress in the filter washing process and water recovery, with technologies that simulate evaporation, using various variables, such as temperature, relative humidity, occupancy, and other parameters [51,52,[63][64][65][66][67][68][69]. The studies related to filtration during recirculation and disinfection to ensure pool sanitation [70] and the studies of water stress in the filter cleaning process [29,71,72] and water recovery [73][74][75][76] are of great importance in the research presented here.…”

“…Thus, the issues of concern in the literature, at the level of water stress, are evaporation [42,[50][51][52][53][54]56,63,[65][66][67][68][69]83], filter backwashing [29,61,72,75,76], and water reuse and disinfection [71,74,76]. Regarding energy stress, the literature is based on energy consumption and cost [20,28,30,77,85,86,90], heating [31,78,79,81], simulation models and applicable technology [35,58,60,65,84,86,89], solar systems to reduce consumption [35,36,43,[91][92][93][94], and carbon footprint [12,[20]…”