| Summary: | In this thesis, the impact of open loop heat pumps on rivers is investigated. These heat pumps inject water of a different temperature into the environment as part of their heating (or cooling) process. In doing so, thermal plumes are created. The behaviour of these thermal plumes is studied using thermal imagery from the Matapédia river and a relationship between the temperature difference between the plume and the downstream distance from the source of the plume is determined.
The cumulative impact of heat pumps on the ambient environment is investigated. This is carried out by considering the distance from the outflow of these heat pumps, or equivalently the sources of the thermal plumes, to the position where the thermal plumes can be considered to behave as one larger plume. This distance, the merging height (or merging distance), is studied as a function of source separation between the plumes, number of plumes and cross-flow velocity of the ambient environment. The mathematical models devised to study this show that the merging height increases linearly with source separation in both stillwater and a cross-flow, increases with the number of plumes, and decays exponentially with increasing cross-flow velocities. These findings are confirmed by experimental data. In conclusion, this work has determined relationships to explain the cumulative impact of heat pumps on the ambient environment and makes suggestions for further areas of investigation.
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