Introduction

Cooling towers operate as a heat exchanger system, used to which reject waste heat from hot water to the atmosphere due to an air circulation mechanism while at the same time provides the cool water to the facility. The circulating cooling water absorbs heat by cooling or condensing the hot process streams or even by cooling hot rotating machinery and other hot equipment within the industrial facilities. The cooling towers then reject that absorbed heat by transferring it to the atmosphere. Initially cooling towers provides intimate contact of the hot water with a flow of ambient air, which is well below the saturation point, i.e. air which contains less water vapour that it is capable of containing. Hence in this sense the heat contained in the water itself causes part of the water to evaporate to the atmosphere and therefore causes the water to cool. Cooling towers can exist in different configurations namely natural draft, forced draft or induced draft cooling towers (i.e. mechanical draft)

Natural draft

It is an enclosed structure where the warm inside air naturally rises due to the density differential between that inside warm air and the cooler outside air. Thus, the buoyancy of the inside air relative to the outside air induces a flow of air through the cooling tower.

Mechanical draft,

This type uses mechanical forces in terms of motor-driven fans to either force or draws air through the tower and includes:

Induced draft
The latter uses a fan at the air exit from the cooling tower to pull or draw air through the tower. This produces low entering and high exiting air velocities, reducing the possibility of the exit air recirculating back into the air intake.

 Forced draft
This makes use of a fan at the air intake to the cooling tower to push or force air through the tower. This produces high entering and low exiting air velocities. However the low exiting velocity is more susceptible to recirculation. Industrially, mainly in powerplants the induced draft type cooling towers are most. The tower receives hot water from the condenser after extracting heat from the working fluid leaving the turbine. The hot water flow through pipes to a certain height of the tower, where they are sprayed over the fill, which is a tray that is used to increase the surface area of the water in order to facilitate the cooling procedure. Ambient air enters through the openings of the tower and flow counter current to the down flowing liquid. This allows warm water to evaporate which is absorbed by the air. The tower then makes use of two fans which extract the warm air to the atmosphere while cold water fills up the spaced below opening, which is then sent back to the condenser. Applications of cooling towers in large commercial scale also include:

Coal and Bagasse Power Plants Petrochemical and chemical plants Natural gas processing plants Chiller Plants in Hotels and cold rooms
However it is important to note that to maintain a proper operation of the cooling tower, regular blowdown procedures in order to remove most of the minerals and other impurities which would settle down during the evaporation preprocess. This sedimentation process promotes scaling and hence has the ability to damage the piping systems as well as the pumps in mechanical draft systems.

Aim and Objectives

The aim of the practical is to know the basic mode of operation of the cooling tower and identify the water and air circuits and characteristics which form part of the Bench Top Water Cooling Tower. The objective of the practical is to measure wet and dry bulb temperatures, apply psychometric principles to determine relative humidity and eventually analyse the wet bulb as well as make up water fed to cooling tower as they are used in designing cooling towers.

Litterature Review
In this experiment, we use a mechanical forced draft cooling tower which circulates air from below to the falling water as shown is the schematic below.

Figure 1: Figure showing the schematic of a bench top cooling tower

Air is fed from the fan below( forced draft) and the air is distributed through the chamber in the packing. Water that is to be cooled is distributed from above the packing. The contact between the air and water allows the water to cool and rejecting its heat to the air. The cool water falls to the basin where it is recirculated through a heater via a pump. The water gets heated again and follows the same cycle. The heater can be set a desired power ratings to the give the heat required by the water. Some water is lost as mist and this is accounted by addition of make-up water in the feed water tank between the basin and the pump. The schematic proposes the circuit
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of the air and that of the water. This explains the concept used in power plants. In power plants, cooling towers are the heat rejecting device to the cold reservoir. The condenser can be represented by the heater in this case. The water forms a closed loop and cools the water in the water in the condenser which is actually only a type of heat exchange equipment.

Figure 2: Figure showing heat engine, sink and reservoir

Courtesy: http://homepages.wmich.edu/~kaldon/classes/ph107-13-heat-engine.gif

Methodology
Procedure: 1. The bench Top Cooling tower is allowed to stabilize under the following suggested conditions: Orifice differential 16mmH2O Water flow rate 30gm/s Cooling Head 1.0 kW 2. The tower is allowed to stabilize for 10 minutes and then all temperatures and flow rates are noted at regular time interval and the mean values are recorded in the observation sheet. 3. Before proceeding the make up level of water is added as needed to bring the level back to the level at the start of the cooling tower operation. The difference gave the make-up which was supplied in the time interval. 4. Step1 and 2 is then repeated.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Test No. Packing Installed

1 B

2 B

3 B

4 B

5 B

6 B

Packing Density /m-1 Air inlet, t1/C Dry Bulb Air inlet, t2/C Wet Bulb Air Outlet, t3/C Dry Bulb Air outlet, t4/C Wet Bulb Water inlet, t5/C Temperature Water outlet, t6/C Temperature Water Make-up Temperature, t7/C Orifice Differential, x/mm H2O Water Flow Rate, mw/gs-1 Cooling Load, Q/kW Make-up quantity, mq/mL Time interval, y/s

110 25.0 19.8 23.2 21.3 25.1 22.3 25.0 16 40 0.5 156 300

110 25.3 20.1 23.6 21.8 25.6 22.8 25.3 16 40 0.5 250 600

110 25.6 20.3 23.7 22.0 25.9 23.2 25.6 16 40 0.5 324 900

110 25.9 20.3 23.8 22.0 26.1 23.4 25.9 16 40 0.5 400 1200

110 25.8 20.2 23.2 21.4 24.0 23.1 25.8 16 40 0.5 504 1500

110 25.5 20.2 23.0 21.2 23.5 22.8 25.5 16 40 0.5 522 1800

Pressure Drop, p/mm H2O

3.3

3.4

3.3

3.3

3.3

3.1

CALCULATIONS Considering experiment 1: Using the wet and dry bulb temperatures and the psychrometic chart, hA = 56.9 kJ/kg A = 0.0124 kg/kg hB = 61.9 kJ/kg B = 0.0152 kg/kg VB = 0.859 m3/kg dry air From the orifice calibration,

a = 0.0137

x (1 B )VB

= 0.0137

16 (1 0.0152) 0.859

= 0.0587 kg/s

Make-up rate, mg =
mq y

156 10 3 kg/s 300

= 0.520 103 kg/s

Using steam table, the specific enthalpy of make-up, (hf at 25.0 C) hg = 104.89 kJ/kg
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Figure 3: figure showing the energy balance over the tower

Applying the steady flow equation to the above system, Q - P = H + KE Q P = 1.0 (- 0.1) = 1.1 kW

(Pump power is approximately 100 W, negative) H = H1 H2 = ahB - ahA - mghg

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= a (hB - hA) - mghg = 0.0587 (61.9 56.9) ( 0.520 103 x 104.89) = 0.239 kW The discrepancy may be attributed to errors and heat transfer to or from the surroundings and to the manufacturing tolerances in the rating of heating elements.

Performing a mass balance mg = a (B - A) = 0.0587 (0.0152 0.0124) = 0.164 103 kg/s

The discrepancy may be attributed to carry over and drifts. The above calculations are repeated for experiments 2 - 6 and the results are tabulated as shown below:

Test No. hA/kJkg-1

1 56.9

2 57.9

3 58.6

4 58.7

5 58.6

6 58.3

A/kgkg1

0.0124

0.0126

0.0129

0.0128

0.0127

0.0128

hB/kJkg-1

61.9

64.0

64.7

64.6

62.3

62.0

B/kgkg1

0.0152

0.0137

0.0160

0.0159

0.0153

0.0153

VB/m3kg
-1

0.859

0.858

0.863

0.863

0.860

0.858

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a/kgs-1

0.0587

0.0588

0.0585

0.0585

0.0586

0.0587

mg/kgs-1

0.520 103

0.417 103

0.360 103

0.333 103

0.336 103

0.290 103

hg/kJkg-1

104.89

106.14

107.40

108.65

108.23

106.98

H/kW

0.239

0.314

0.318

0.309

0.180

0.186

INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS
27.0

25.0

23.0 T1 21.0 T2 T3 19.0 T4

17.0

15.0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Figure 4: Figure shows graph of T1, T2, T3 and T4 against time

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24.0 23.0 22.0 21.0 20.0 19.0 18.0 1 2 3 4 5 6 T2 t6

Figure 5: Figure showing wet bulb approach

Graph of make up water against time interval

600 500 400 300 200 100 0 0 500 1000 1500 2000 Linear (time interval ) time interval

Figure 6: Figure showing graph of make-up water against time

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DISCUSSION From the results above, figure 4 shows the relationship between the temperatures T1, T2, T3 and T4 with time. T1 is the dry bulb inlet air temperature, T2 is the wet bulb air inlet temperature, T3 is the dry bulb air outlet temperature and T4 is the wet bulb outlet temperature. The four temperatures were measured from the equipment and were taken at five minute intervals. T1 shows an increasing trend as the temperature of the air increases with time. T2 lower than T1 (wet bulb lower than dry bulb) also shows and increasing tendency with time. The outlet temperatures T3 and T4 which are the dry bulb and wet bulb respectively are more or less constant for the first 20 minutes and they gradually fall at the end of the experiment. It can be noted from the graph that T2 and T4 which are the wet bulb temperatures of the inlet and outlet air respectively approach each other. This means that heat is being transferred from the water to the saturated air. Figure 5 shows the wet bulb approach of the experiment. The approach is the difference in temperature between the cooled-water temperature and the entering-air wet bulb temperature. The approach is an important parameter in designing a cooling tower. The lesser the approach the more efficient the tower is. The graph shows the difference between the two temperatures over the period of time. The approach increases slightly with time until stabilizing to 2.9 oC. Literature states that 2.8
o

C is an actual figure for cooling tower approaches.( www.

cheresources.com/ctowers) More experiments carried out could have given a broader picture of the behavior and an even better approach.

Figure 6 shows the graph of make-up water against time. Make up is added to cater for the lost in water in the evaporating/cooling process. The higher the time of operation, the higher the amount of make up water added to the cooling tower. The graph is close to the linear line. There is a small discrepancy at the end of the experiment owing to users errors.

CONCLUSION

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In the light of the experiment it can be seen that the temperature of the inlet air and the outlet air come closer at the end of the experiment. The heat-transfer process involves the Latent heat transfer owing to vaporization of a small portion of the water and Sensible heat transfer owing to the difference in temperature of water and air. Approximately 80% of this heat removal per Kg of air circulated in a cooling tower depends on the temperature and moisture content of air. An indication of the moisture content of air is its wet-bulb temperature. Ideally the wet-bulb temperature is the lowest theoretical temperature to which the water can be cooled. The cold water temperature approaches but does not equal the wet-bulb temperature of air because it is impossible to contact all the water with fresh air as the water drops through the wetted fill surface to the basin. The other conclusion that can be drawn is that the approach nears approximately 2.8 oC. The magnitude of approach to the wet-bulb temperature is dependent on tower design. The important factors are as follows: Air-to-water contact time. Amount of fill surface Breakup of water into droplets.

Finally the makeup water addition increases linearly with time.

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