COOLING TOWER

What is a cooling tower?

Cooled water is needed for, for example, air conditioners, manufacturing processes or power generation. A cooling tower is equipment used to reduce the temperature of a water stream by extracting heat from water and emitting it to the atmosphere. Cooling towers make use of evaporation whereby some of the water is evaporated into a moving air stream and subsequently discharged into the atmosphere. As a result, the remainder of the water is cooled down significantly (Figure 1). Cooling towers are able to lower the water temperatures more than devices that use only air to reject heat, like the radiator in a car. Once-Through Cooling: In a once-through circulating water system, water is taken from a body of water such as a river, lake, or ocean, pumped through the plant condenser, and discharged back to the source. For many years, the once-through circulating water system was the most popular arrangement for power plant cycle heat rejection systems. Once-through circulating water system has two significant advantages. First, the relatively low temperature of most water sources used for oncethrough cooling makes this the most efficient cycle heat rejection system design. Second, the simple system arrangement typically makes once-through cooling the cycle heat rejection system design with the lowest capital and operating costs. The disadvantage of this system is that the heated water is discharged back to the original water source, where the added heat is gradually dissipated to the earth's atmosphere. However, it may take a long time for the source water temperature to return to normal, or a new equilibrium temperature may be reached at a level higher than the normal temperature as long as the plant is in operation. Before construction of a once-through cooling system, environmental permits typically require determination of flow and temperature patterns around the circulating water discharge to estimate the thermal impact. Water quality regulations recently issued by federal and local environmental agencies have made the once-through cooling system very difficult, if not impossible, to implement in domestic new power plant construction. Also, the large cooling water requirement of a once-through system limits potential plant sites to locations near large rivers, lakes, and oceans.

Components of a cooling tower: The basic components of a cooling tower include the frame and casing, fill, cold-water basin, drift eliminators, air inlet, louvers, nozzles and fans Frame and casing: Most towers have structural frames that support the exterior enclosures (casings), motors, fans, and other components. With some smaller designs, such as some glass fiber units, the casing may essentially be the frame. Fill: Most towers employ fills (made of plastic or wood) to facilitate heat transfer by maximizing water and air contact. There are two types of fill

Splash fill: water falls over successive layers of horizontal splash bars, continuously breaking into smaller droplets, while also wetting the fill surface. Plastic splash fills promote better heat transfer than wood splash fills. Film fill: consists of thin, closely spaced plastic surfaces over which the water spreads, forming a thin film in contact with the air. These surfaces may be flat, corrugated, honeycombed, or other patterns. The film type of fill is the more efficient and provides same heat transfer in a smaller volume than the splash fill.

Cold-water basin: The cold-water basin is located at or near the bottom of the tower, and it receives the cooled water that flows down through the tower and fills. The basin usually has a sump or low point for the cold-water discharge connection. In many tower designs, the cold-water basin is beneath the entire fill. In some forced draft counter flow design, however, the water at the bottom of the fill is channeled to a perimeter trough that functions as the cold-water basin. Propeller fans are mounted beneath the fill to blow the air up through the tower. With this design, the tower is mounted on legs, providing easy access to the fans and their motors.

Drift eliminators: In every cooling tower there is a loss of water to the environment due to the evaporative cooling process. This evaporation is usually in the form of pure water vapor and presents no harm to the environment. Drift, however, is the undesirable loss of liquid water to the environment via small droplets that become entrained in the leaving air stream. There, water droplets carry with them chemicals and minerals, thus impacting the surrounding environment. The eliminators prevent the water droplets and mist from escaping the cooling tower. Eliminators do this by causing the droplets to change direction and lose velocity at impact on the blade walls and fall back into these capture water droplets entrapped in the air stream that otherwise would be lost to the atmosphere. Drift eliminators are designed to capture large water droplets caught in the cooling tower air stream. Air inlet: This is the point of entry for the air entering a tower. The inlet may take up an entire side of a tower (cross-flow design) or be located low on the side or the bottom of the tower (counter-flow design). Louvers: Generally, cross-flow towers have inlet louvers. The purpose of louvers is to equalize air flow into the fill and retain the water within the tower. Many counter flow tower designs do not require louvers. Nozzles: These spray water to wet the fill. Uniform water distribution at the top of the fill is essential to achieve proper wetting of the entire fill surface. Nozzles can either be fixed and spray in a round or square patterns, or they can be part of a rotating assembly as found in some circular cross-section towers. Fans: Both axial (propeller type) and centrifugal fans are used in towers. Generally, propeller fans are used in induced draft towers and both propeller and centrifugal fans are found in forced draft towers. Depending upon their size, the type of propeller fans used is either fixed or variable pitch. A fan with non-automatic adjustable pitch blades can be used over a wide kW range because the fan can be adjusted to deliver the desired air flow at the lowest power consumption. Automatic variable pitch blades can vary air flow in response to changing load conditions. Classification of Cooling Tower General classification of cooling tower is pictured below:

Classification by build:

Package Type: This type of cooling towers is preassembled and can be simply transported on trucks as they are compact machines. The capacity of package type towers is limited and for that reason, they are usually preferred by facilities with low heat rejection requirements such as food processing plants, textile plants, buildings like hospitals, hotels, malls, chemical processing plants, automotive factories etc. Due to the intensive use in domestic areas, sound level control is a relatively more important issue for package type cooling towers. Field Erected Type: Field erected type cooling towers are usually preferred for power plants, steel Processing plants, petroleum refineries, and petrochemical plants. These towers are larger in size compared to the package type cooling towers.

Classification based on heat transfer method:

Wet Cooling Tower: This type of cooling tower operates based on evaporation principle. The working fluid and the evaporated fluid (usually water) are one and the same. In a wet cooling tower, the warm water can be cooled to a temperature lower than the ambient air dry-bulb temperature, if the air is relatively dry. Dry Cooling Tower: This tower operates by heat transfer through a surface that separates the working fluid from ambient air, such as in a tube to air heat

exchanger, utilizing convective heat transfer. Dry cooling tower does not use evaporation.

Fluid Cooler: This tower passes the working fluid through a tube bundle, upon which clean water is sprayed and a fan-induced draft applied. The resulting heat transfer performance is much closer to that of a wet cooling tower, with the advantage provided by a dry cooler of protecting the working fluid from environmental exposure and contamination.

Classification based on air draft:

Atmospheric Tower: An atmospheric tower consists of a big rectangular chamber with two opposite louvered walls. The tower is packed with a suitable tower fill. Atmospheric air enters the tower through the louvers driven by its own velocity. An atmospheric tower is cheap but inefficient. Its performance largely depends upon the direction and velocity of wind.

Natural draft cooling tower: The natural draft or hyperbolic cooling tower makes use of the difference in temperature between the ambient air and the hotter air inside the tower. As hot air moves upwards through the tower (because hot air rises), fresh cool air is drawn into the tower through an air inlet at the bottom. A natural draft tower is so called because natural flow of air occurs through the tower. Two factors are responsible for creating the natural draft:
A rise in temperature and humidity of air in the column reduces its

density,and
The wind velocity at the tower bottom.

Due to the layout of the tower, no fan is required and there is almost no circulation of hot air that could affect the performance. But in some cases, a few fans are installed at the bottom to enhance the air flow rate. This type of tower is called fan-assisted natural draft tower. The hyperbolic shape is made because of the following reasons:
More packing can be fitted in the bigger area at the bottom of the shell. The entering air gets smoothly directed towards the center because of the

shape of the wall, producing a strong upward draft;

Greater structural strength and stability of the shell is provided by this

shape. The pressure drop across the tower is low and the air velocity above the packing may vary from 1-1.5 m/s. The concrete tower is supported on a set of reinforced concrete columns. Concrete is used for the tower shell with a height of up to 200 m. These cooling towers are mostly only for large heat duties because large concrete structures are expensive.

There are two main types of natural draft towers: Cross flow tower (Figure 2): air is drawn across the falling water and the fill is located outside the tower

Counter flow tower (Figure 3): air is drawn up through the falling water and the fill is therefore located inside the tower, although design depends on specific site conditions.

Mechanical draft cooling tower: Because of their huge shape, construction difficulties and cost, natural draft towers have been replaced by mechanical draft towers in many installations. Mechanical draft towers have large fans to force or draw air through circulated water. The water falls downwards over fill surfaces, which help increase the contact time between the water and the air - this helps maximize heat transfer between the two. Cooling rates of mechanical draft towers depend upon various parameters such as fan diameter and speed of operation, fills for system resistance etc. There are two different classes of mechanical draft cooling towers: Forced draft: It has one or more fans located at the tower bottom to push air into the tower. During operation, the fan forces air at a low velocity horizontally through the packing and then vertically against the downward flow of the water that occurs on either side of the fan. The drift eliminators located at the top of the tower remove water entrained in the air. Vibration and noise are minimal since the rotating equipment is built on a solid foundation. The fans handle mostly dry air, greatly reducing erosion and water condensation problems.

Induced draft: A mechanical draft tower with a fan at the discharge which pulls air through tower. The fan induces hot moist air out the discharge. This produces low entering and high exiting air velocities, reducing the possibility of recirculation in which discharged air flows back into the air intake.

Classification based on air flow pattern:

Cross flow: Cross flow is a design in which the 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 material. Water flows (perpendicular to the air) through the fill by gravity. The air continues through the fill and thus past the water flow in to an open plenum area. A distribution or hot water basin consisting of a deep pan with holes or nozzles in the bottom is utilized in across flow tower. Gravity distributes the water through the nozzles uniformly across the fill material.

Counter flow: In a counter flow design the air flow is directly opposite to the water flow (see diagram below). Air flow first enters an open area beneath the fill media and is then drawn up vertically. The water is sprayed through pressurized nozzles and flows downward through the fill, opposite to the air flow.

Assessment of Cooling Towers: This section describes how the performance of cooling towers can be assessed. The performance of cooling towers is evaluated to assess present levels of approach and range against their design values, identify areas of energy wastage and to suggest improvements. During the performance evaluation, portable monitoring instruments are used to measure the following parameters:

Wet bulb temperature of air Dry bulb temperature of air Cooling tower inlet water temperature Cooling tower outlet water temperature Exhaust air temperature Electrical readings of pump and fan motors Water flow rate Air flow rate

These measured parameters and then used to determine the cooling tower performance in several ways. (Note: CT = cooling tower; CW = cooling water). These are:

Range: This is the difference between the cooling tower water inlet and outlet temperature. A high CT Range means that the cooling tower has been able to reduce the water temperature effectively, and is thus performing well. The formula is: CT Range (C) = [CW inlet temp (C) CW outlet temp (C)]

Approach: This is the difference between the cooling tower outlet cold water temperature and ambient wet bulb temperature. The lower the approach the better the cooling tower performance. Although, both range and approach should be monitored, the `Approach is a better indicator of cooling tower performance. CT Approach (C) = [CW outlet temp (C) Wet bulb temp (C)]

Effectiveness: This is the ratio between the range and the ideal range (in percentage), i.e. difference between cooling water inlet temperature and ambient wet bulb temperature, or in other words it is = Range / (Range + Approach). The higher this ratio, the higher the cooling tower effectiveness. CT Effectiveness (%) = 100 x (CW in temp CW out temp) / (CW in temp WB temp)

Cooling capacity: This is the heat rejected in kCal/hr or TR, given as product of mass flow rate of water, specific heat and temperature difference. Cooling Capacity=m x Cp x (CW in temp CW out temp)

Evaporation loss:

(E) = (C) (T) (Cp) / HV , where E=Evaporation loss, C= Circulating water in m3/hr, T = water temperature difference from tower top to tower bottom, in C , Cp = specific heat of water = 4.184 kJ / kg / C and Hv = latent heat of vaporization of water = ca. 2260 kJ / kg But in thumb rule is taken as 1.8% of rate of circulating water.

CALCULATION OF EVAPORATION LOSSES (1000 M3/HR):

Latent heat of evaporation is 540.5 k.cal./kg of water say 550 k.cal./kg. Heat load = m x cp x (th tc ) Where cp = specific heat of water = 1 th = hot water temp. = 45 C m =weight of water kg. 550 k.cal. = m x 1 x (45 35) C = evaporation of 1 kg of water
0 0

tc = cooled water temp. =35 C

Cycl es of concentration (C.O.C): One of the common terms used in describing the water use efficiency of cooling tower water systems is COC. COC represents the relationship between the makeup water quantity and blow down quantity. COC is a measure of the total amount of minerals that is concentrated in the cooling tower water relative to the amount of minerals in the makeup water or to the volume of each type of water. The higher the COC, the greater the water use efficiency. Most cooling tower systems operate with a COC of 3 to 10, where 3 represents acceptable efficiency and 10 represents very good efficiency. It has been found that the range of 5 to 7 COC represents the most cost-effective situation. Theoretically, evaporation from a cooling tower is pure water. All of the dissolved ions are left behind to concentrate in the system. If the only system water loss was through evaporation, the dissolved ions in the recirculating water would continue to concentrate (from the ions left after evaporation) until the solubility of each ion in the water was exceeded and massive scale/deposition resulted. Most systems

550k.cal=mx10 =evaporation of 1 kg of water.

cannot tolerate any scale; therefore, the level or concentration of critical scalingprone ions in the water is usually controlled by a combination of bleeding off a certain portion of the recirculation water and adding anti-scaling compounds. The rate at which water is bled from a system (in gpm; m3/hr) compared with the amount of fresh water being introduced in the system (in gpm; m3/hr) will also determine the concentration ratio.

If both makeup and blow down water volumes are known, COC by volume can be calculated. The term is defined as: C=MB
Calculating COC by Volume:

C = COC, no units M = makeup water, kg/hr (gpm) B = blow down losses, kg/hr (gpm) This is the ratio of dissolved solids in circulating water to the dissolved solids in make-up water.

Blow down losses: The blow down (bleed-off) rate is generally defined as the water lost from the system for all reasons except evaporation. In very tight (low water loss) open recirculating systems, the two primary areas for system water loss are evaporation and water blowdown. In practice, however, a lot of water may also be lost through system water leaks, by water combining with the product or process, or by tower drift. For calculation purposes, all of these water losses, except for evaporation, are generally considered together and called tower water blowdown. The blowdown rate is normally measured in gallons per minute (m3/hr). Depend upon cycles of concentration and the evaporation losses and is given by formula: Blow down = Evaporation loss / (C.O.C. 1) This expression was derived from the following cooling tower water balance relationship: M= B + E Substituting M = (C)(B) in M = B + E : (C)(B) = B + E (C)(B) - B = E (B)(C-1) = E B=E/(C-1)

Make Up water: Water that must be added to replace water lost from the recirculating system by evaporation and bleed-off (or blowdown) is called makeup water (M). The amount of water entering the system must be equal to the amount leaving the system. Make Up water=M=E+B Where M=Make-Up water E=Evaporation Loss B=Blow Down loss If the temperature drop across the tower and the recirculation rates are known, the amounts of water loss through evaporation can be calculated. If the concentration ratio is also known then the makeup water requirements can be calculated as follows M=(ExC)/C-1

The expression was developed from the following fundamental cooling tower water balance Relationships M=E+B C = M/B Substituting B = M/C in the first equation. M = E + M/C (M)(C) = (E)(C) + M (M)(C) - M = (E)(C) M=(ExC)/C-1

SIZING OF COOLING TOWER::

Now knowing the evaporation to be done for required delta T we have to calculate quantity of atmospheric air required to pick up this much quantity of water. For example consider following parameter : Water flow M3/ hr: Hot water temp0C: Cooled water temp0C: Wet bulb temp0C: 1000 45 (113 0F ) 35 (95 0F) 28 (82.4 0F)

We can find out the humidity of air, as kg of water vapour carried by kg of dry air from sychometric chart. Air will pick up moisture till it becomes saturated, when it is allowed to be in contact with water. We can limit the absorption up to 90 % humidity Humidity at 280C: Humidity at 90 %: Therefore: Evaporation losses: 0.0192 kg of water/kg of dry air. 0.0450 kg of water/kg of dry air. 0.0258 kg of water/kg of dry air is picked up by air. =1.8 % as calculated above =0.018 x 1000 M3/ hr =18 M3/ hr =18000 kg/hr

Therefore 18000 kg of water will be required to be evaporated for cooling water from 45 0C to 350C in 1 hr. Quantity of air required = 18000 x 1/0.0258 = 697674.41 kg/hr Now density of air = 0.0808 lb/cu. ft. = 0.0808x16.03 kg/ M3 = 1.295 kg/M3 (lb/2.2/cu.ft./35.28 = lb/cu. ft. = 35.28/2.2 = 16.03 kg/ M 3 Therefore air required = 697674 / 1.295 = 538745 M3/hr. Now for 1000 M3/hr of water flow we have 555 nozzles Therefore air to be sucked per nozzle= 538745 / 555 =971 M 3/hr

Now water spray diameter is 300 mm and height of spray is 17=5.18 mtr Therefore Volume of air = 0.3662 M3 / sec. = 1318 M3/hr (about 30 % more than required quantity of 971 M3hr as calculated above)