CIVIL ENGINEERING LABORATORY

UITM PAHANG, KAMPUS JENGKA

BASIC STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS
ECM346
OPEN-ENDED LAB
SEPTEMBER 2018 – JANUARY 2019

TITLE OF : COOLING TOWER – WATER COOLED

EXPERIMENT
DATE OF : 30 OCTOBER 2018
EXPERIMENT
GROUP : EC1104A
GROUP MEMBERS : 1. ZAHED BIN ABD AZIZ (2015866952)
2. AHMED FAREEZ BIN ALI MUSA (2016472686)
3. MOHAMAD YAZID BIN MOHAMAD AZMI
(2016472134)
4. MOHAMAD SYAZANI BUN MOHD SARWAN
(2016472992)
5. YUSUF ISKANDAR BIN AZMI
LECTURER : SIR MUHAMMAD ISHA BIN ISMAIL
LEVEL OF OPENESS : 0

NO ELEMENT COPO Marks COMMENTS

1 INTRODUCTION

2 BASIC CONCEPT

SUMMARY OF
3 2 4 6 8 10
PROCEDURES/METHOD
ANALYSIS AND
4 2 4 6 8 10
INTERPETATION OF DATA

5 DISCUSSION OF RESULT 2 4 6 8 10

6 CONCLUSIONS 2 4 6 8 10

TOTAL MARKS /40

INTRODUCTION

Level 1 laboratory activity refers to condition where the problem and ways & means are guided
and given to the students. However the answers to the assignment are left to the students to
solve using the group creativity and innovativeness. The activity is designed to slowly
introduced and inculcate independent learning amongst students and prepare them for a much
harder task of Open-Ended Laboratory (OEL) activities.

In these laboratory activities, students will be exposed to learn the basic concepts and
principles of air-conditioning plant; centralised system. The students are required to discover
the application of cooling tower operated in a building to provide comfort environment for the
building occupants.

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of this open-ended laboratory activity are:

1. To understand the concepts and the principle of cooling tower used in building.

2. To identify the important components in the system of cooling tower

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

A cooling tower is a heat rejection device, which extracts waste heat to the atmosphere though
the cooling of a water stream to a lower temperature. Common applications for cooling towers
are providing cooled water for air-conditioning, manufacturing and electric power generation.
Large office buildings, hospitals, and schools typically use one or more cooling towers as part
of their air conditioning systems. Generally, industrial cooling towers are much larger than
smaller buildings. Cooling towers remove heat from a building’s air conditioning system by
evaporating some of the re-circulated water to cool the remainder. While all cooling towers
continually reuse water, they can consume a significant percentage of a facility’s total water
use. Towers that are in good condition, operated properly and are well maintained allow chiller
to operate at peak efficiency.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

The temperature of a space is not the only factor affecting the comfort of room. Even if the
temperature is within an acceptable range, the space may seem warm if the humidity is too
high, the airflow is too low, or warmth is being radiated to the occupants. Natural ventilation
is no longer sufficient for a big-sized scale building where mechanical ventilation such as
cooling tower system is essential to be installed to provide comfort for the occupants. For that
purpose, students are required to conduct a site visit to explore and understand the cooling
tower system installed in the selected building.

By conducting a site visit, students are trained to develop their individual soft skills.
They need to observe by the own the actual system which has been installed in a building and
this may enhance their understanding on the basic operation of the system and the maintenance
aspects.

From the observation and discussion with the respective person who is responsible to
manage the air conditioning system, the factors that affecting the performance of cooling tower,
temperature, humidity of a room or space can be determined. Students also need to explore the
water circulation (transfer hear medium) at each component – AHU, Chiller and Cooling
Tower.

APPARATUS

Benchtop Cooling Tower Trainer.

PROCEDURES

1. All valves and switches was ensured in desired position.

2. The apparatus was set up properly and no air trap in the pump was ensured.
 3. The manometer level, distributor, heater, fan, and etc was checked so that they operate
in optimized operating mode.

4. The unit was ensured ready for use before set to the desired condition.

DATA

Observation Sheet

TEST NO 1 2 3 4
Packing Installed B B B B
Packing Density (m-1) 110 110 110 110
Air Inlet Dry Bulb, T1 30 31 31 31
(oC)
Air Inlet Wet Bulb, 28 29 30 31
T2 (oC)
Air Outlet Dry Bulb, 27 29 31 31
T3 (oC)
Air Outlet Wet Bulb, 27 29 31 31
T4 (oC)
Water Inlet 27 31 36 34
Temperature, T5 (oC)
Water Outlet 27 30 32 32
Temperature, T6(oC)
Water Make-Up 29/40 34/40 39/40 38/40
Temperature, T7 (oC)
Orifice Differential 16 16 16 16
(X/H20)
Water Flow Rate 40 40 40 40
(mw/gms-1)
Cooling Load (Q/Kw) 0 0.5 1.0 1.5
Time interval (s) 10 10 10 10
Water Level (cm) 15 14.2 11.6 6.6
DISCUSSION

For this experiment, the instrument was used in this experiment is Water Cooling Tower
HE152 unit. All cooling towers operate on the principle of removing heat from water by
evaporating a small portion of the water that is recirculated through the unit. The heat that is
removed is called the latent heat of vaporization.

There are several term in principle of cooling tower need to be focused when
conducting this experiment as a basic knowledge to perform experiment perfectly. Firstly,
cooling range. The difference in temperature between the hot water entering the water and the
cold water leaving the tower is the cooling range. Secondly is approach. The difference
between the temperature of the cold water leaving the tower and the wet-bulb temperature of
the air is known as approach.

There are four tests in this experiment. The air inlet for dry bulb is only different in test
1 as the temperature is 30 C° while the other tests are same which is 31 C°. Furthermore, the
air inlet for wet bulb are different for all tests. The highest value is test four which is 31 C°
while the lowest value would be test 1 which is 28 C°. The water inlet also have different value
for all tests. The highest value will be test 3 which is 36 C° while the least value is test 1 which
is 27 C°. The water flowrate are same for all tests which are 40 mw.

CONCLUSION

All the cooling tower are working on the principle of water evaporation. On evaporation of
water, both heat and mass transfer takes place and water get cooled. Rate of evaporation is
increased by increasing air velocity. In case of cooling tower we call this an air draft. This air
draft are created by mechanical system of power driven fan.
REFERENCES

1. Givoni, B., 1992. “Comfort, climate analysis and building design guidelines.” Energy
and building, 18(1), pp. 11-23.
2. Ma, Yudingm et al. “Model predictive control for the operation of bulding cooling
systems.: IEEE Transactions on control systens technology 203 (2012):796-803
3. Hensley, Hohn C., ed. Cooling tower fundamentals. Marley Cooling Tower
Company, 1985
4. Stabat, Pascal, and Dominique Marchio. “Simplified model for indirect-contact
evaporative cooling-tower behaviour.” Applied energy 78.4 (2004): 433-451

APPENDICES