COOLING TOWER

• A cooling tower is a system that dissipates heat to the atmosphere.

• Typical cooling towers use air and gravity to cool hot water in a
looped heat exchange system.
• This process is also known as evaporative technology
 Application Of Cooling Tower
1.Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning
• To dispose of (reject) unwanted heat from a chiller.
• HVAC use a cooling tower by pairs the cooling tower with a water-
cooled chiller or water-cooled condenser.
2.Industrial cooling towers
• to remove heat from various sources such as machinery or
heated process material.
• Industrial cooling towers are much larger than HVAC towers.
 Principle

• Hot water enters the system at the top of the

heat exchanger.
• This water then falls by gravity through a
medium which is ventilated.
• Ventilation causes the hotter water to
evaporate off into the air while cooler water
remains liquid and continues down the
medium into the bottom basin.
• The collected cool water is transported back to
the source of heat and cycled through the loop
to be reheated and cooled again.
Principle

Cooling Tower in HVAC System

 Type
Natural Draft Cooling Tower
• The air is circulated inside the cooling tower by natural convection.
• The natural draft cooling towers are further classified as:
a) spray type
b) splash deck type

Mechanical Draft Cooling Towers

• Air is circulated inside the tower mechanically instead of natural circulation.
• Propeller fans or centrifugal fans may be used.
• According to the location of the fan, they are further classified as:
a) Forced draft cooling towers
b) Induced draft cooling towers
Natural Draft Cooling Tower
Spray type
• System is housed inside a box-shaped
structure which also accommodates
spray headers, spray nozzles, and
louvers
• To prevent the carry over of water
droplets to the atmosphere, the
louvers are slanted towards the inside.
• Usually located outside the building,
so the air can pass freely through the
tower.
Natural Draft Cooling Tower

Splash deck type

• Instead of a spray header, a water box is used
• Contains decking inside the tower
• Hot water from the condenser enters into the water box and
splashes via holes in the water box on the decking
• Main objective of the decking is to increase the surface area of
contact of air with the warm water
Mechanical Draft Cooling Towers
Forced Draft Cooling Towers
• In this system, fan is located
near the bottom and on the
side.
• Fan forces the air from bottom
to top.
• An eliminator is used to prevent
loss of water droplets along with
the forced air.
Mechanical Draft Cooling Towers
Induced Draft Cooling Towers
• In this system, a centrally located fan
at the top, takes suction from the
tower and discharges it to the
atmosphere
• The only between the induced draft
cooling tower and forced draft cooling
tower is that the fan is located at the
top in the induced draft cooling tower.
Categorization by air-to-water flow
Crossflow
• Air flow is directed perpendicular to
the water flow
• Air flow enters one or more vertical
faces of the cooling tower to meet the
fill
• Water flows (perpendicular to the air)
through the fill by gravity
• The air continues through the fill and
thus past the water flow into an open
plenum volume
• A fan forces the air out into the
atmosphere
Categorization by air-to-water flow

Counterflow
• The air flow is directly opposite to the
water flow
• Air flow first enters an open area
beneath the fill and then drawn up
vertically
• The water is sprayed through
pressurized nozzles near the top of
the tower, and then flows downward
through the fill, opposite to the air
flow
 Component Of Cooling Tower

Fills
• Purpose as a heat transfer area from hot
water to cold air
• Also known as pack
• Normally made of PVC, Polypropylene or Splash type fill
Wood
• Two type of fill are film type fill & splash
type fill
• Film type fill (causes water to spread into a
thin film)
• Splash type fill (breaks up falling stream of
water and interrupts its vertical progress)

Film type fill

 Component Of Cooling Tower

Drifts Eliminator
• To reduce the drift loss in cooling tower
• kept next to fills in the air flow path
Cold Water Basin
• To collect the cold water from tower
Drift Eliminator
• foundation for the main structure of
cooling tower
• The height of the cooling tower is
determined from the distance between
the top of the cold basin to fan assembly

Cold Water Basin

 Component Of Cooling Tower

Cooling Tower Fan

• made from aluminum, fiber reinforced
plastic (FRP), glass fiber and galvanized
steel
• forces the warm, moist air out into the Cooling tower fan
atmosphere
Fan Motor
• Use to move tower fan

Cooling tower fan motor

 Component Of Cooling Tower

Louvers/air vents
• To retain circulating water within the
tower.
• To equally distribute the air flow into
the fill.
Louvers
Distribution Piping
• distribute water to cooling tower
• must be buried underground or
supported in ground to avoid thrust
loading of the tower due to self
weight and water pressure inside the
pipe

Distribution Piping
Capacity
Cooling towers are rated in terms of approach and range.

The approach is the difference in temperature between the cooled-water temperature and the entering-air wet bulb
temperature.

Approach = LWT – WBT

The range is the temperature difference between the water inlet and exit states.

Range = EWT – LWT

Where

• EWT = Entering hot water temperature (°F)

• LWT = Leaving cold water temperature (°F)

• WBT = Ambient wet bulb temperature (Design WB, °F)

Capacity
Water Circulation through Cooling Tower

Q = H / (Range X 500)

Where

H = Cooling tower heat rejection in Btu/hr

Q = Water flow rate in GPM

Cooling Tower Water Balance
The amount of water that enters as make-up must be equal to the total water that exits
the system
or:

MR = water lost through evaporation (ER) + bleed (BR) + drift (DR)}

Where
• MR = Makeup water requirement in GPM
• DR = Typical drift rate in GPM
• ER = Evaporation rate in GPM
• BR = Bleed rate in GPM
The evaporation rate of cooling tower is
ER = Q X Range / 1,000
The drift loss is roughly 0.2 to 0.5%
DR = 0.002% X Q
When we ignore the insignificant drift losses
Then, MR = ER + BR …… (eq.1)
Recognizing that in order to keep off from making scale, all of the solids that enter as make- up must exit as bleed, it
follows that:
MR = COC x BR …… (eq.2)
And that:
MR = ER [(COC)/ (COC -1)] ……. (eq.3)
Combine (eq.2) and (eq.3) to get:
BR = ER / (COC -1)
Where
• COC = Cycles of concentration.
Ideally the COC is maximized to 5 to 7 by addition of water treatment chemicals.
Cooling Tower Efficiency
• Since the cooling towers are based on the principles of evaporative cooling, the maximum cooling tower efficiency
depends on the wet bulb temperature (WBT) of the air. The cooling tower efficiency can be expressed as:

Efficiency = (EWT - LWT) x 100 / (EWT - WBT)

Where

• Efficiency = cooling tower efficiency - common range between 70 - 75%

• EWT = inlet temperature of water to the tower (0F)

• LWT = outlet temperature of water from the tower (0F)

• WBT = wet bulb temperature of air (0F)

The temperature difference between inlet and outlet water (EWT - LWT) is normally in the range 10 – 150 C. The
water consumption - the make up water - of a cooling tower is about 0.2-0.3 liter perminute per ton of refrigeration.

Cooling towers use the principle of evaporative cooling in order to cool water. They can achieve water temperatures
below the dry bulb temperature (DBT) of the air used to cool it. They are in general smaller and cheaper for the
same cooling load than other cooling systems.
Cooling Tower Tons

A cooling tower ton is defined as:

1 cooling tower ton = 15,000 Btu/hr (3782 kCal /hr)

This is roughly 25% more than chiller ton because the heat of compress
ion of the refrigeration compressor is added to the condenser/cooling
tower.