I.A.

Karimi and Rajagopalan Srinivasan (Editors), Proceedings of the 11th International

Symposium on Process Systems Engineering, 15-19 July 2012, Singapore.
© 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Pressure Drop Consideration in Cooling Water

Systems with Multiple Cooling Towers
Khunedi V. Gololoa,b, Thokozani Majozia
a
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
b
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Advanced Modelling and Digital
Science, Pretoria, South Africa

Abstract
Pressure drop consideration has shown to be an essential requirement for synthesis of
cooling water network where reuse/recycle philosophy is employed. This is due to an
increased network pressure drop associated with additional reuse/recycle streams. This
paper presents a mathematical technique for pressure drop optimization in cooling water
systems consisting of multiple cooling towers. The proposed technique is based on the
Critical Path Algorithm (CPA) and the superstructural approach. The CPA is used to
select the cooling water network with minimum pressure drop whilst the superstructure
allows for cooling water reuse. This technique which was previously used in a cooling
water network with single source is modified and applied in a cooling water network
with multiple sources. The mathematical formulation exhibits a mixed integer nonlinear
programming (MINLP) structure. The cooling tower model is used to predict the exit
conditions of the cooling towers, given the inlet conditions from the cooling water
network model.

Keywords: Cooling water system, Pressure drop, Critical Path Algorithm, Optimization

1. Introduction
Cooling water systems are used in many industries to remove waste heat from the
process to the environment. Research in this area has focused mostly on optimization
and synthesis of cooling water systems in which the technique of recycle and reuse is
explored. In most cases the synthesized cooling water network is more complex thus
resulting in a higher pressure drop. Kim and Smith (2001) used the graphical technique
to debottleneck a cooling water system with single source.
Ponce-Ortega et al. (2010) also presented a mathematical model for synthesis of cooling
water networks that was based on a stage wise superstructural approach. This work
included the cooling tower model and the pressure drop for each cooler was considered.
Panjeshahi and Ataei (2008) extended the work of Kim and Smith (2001) on cooling
water system design by incorporating a comprehensive cooling tower model. Different
approach was taken by Majozi and Moodley (2008) who developed a mathematical
model for optimization of cooling water systems with multiple cooling towers. This
work was later improved by Gololo and Majozi (2011) by incorporating the cooling
tower model.
In all the abovementioned work the topology of cooling water network was more
complex thus prone to higher pressure drop than the conventional parallel design. Kim
and Smith (2003) presented a paper on retrofit design of cooling water systems in which
pressure drop was taken into consideration. The authors used graphical technique to
Pressure Drop Consideration in Cooling Water Systems with Multiple Cooling Towers 691

target the minimum circulating water flowrate and mathematical technique to design a
cooling water network. This work was limited to one cooling source.
This paper presents a mathematical technique for pressure drop optimization in cooling
water systems consisting of multiple cooling towers. The proposed technique is based
on the Critical Path Algorithm (CPA) and the superstructural approach. The CPA is
used to select the cooling water network with minimum pressure drop whilst the
superstructure allows for cooling water reuse. This technique was previously used by
Kim and Smith (2003) to synthesize cooling water network with single source. However
in this paper CPA is adapted for a cooling water network with multiple sources.
Furthermore, the detailed cooling tower model is also incorporated.

2. Model development
A two-step approach is employed to synthesize and optimize the cooling water system
with multiple cooling towers considering pressure drop. The first step involves targeting
of the minimum circulating water flowrate and in the second step the CPA is
incorporated to synthesize the cooling water network with multiple cooling sources.
The cooling tower model developed by Kröger (2004) is used to predict the outlet
conditions of the cooling towers and the overall cooling towers effectiveness. The
cooling water network model by Gololo and Majozi (2011) is improved by
incorporating the modified heat exchangers and pipes pressure drop correlations of Nie
and Zhu (1999) shown in Eq. (1) and Eq. (4) respectively. In this paper the correlation
of Nie and Zhu (1999) is expressed in terms of mass flowrate.

ΔP = N t1 m 1.8 + N t 2 m 2 (1)

where Nt1 = 1.115567μ ntp A

0.2 2.8
(2)
2.8
π
2.8
ρN t d o di
4.8

20ntp 3 ρ
Nt2 = (3)
π 2 N t2 d i4

The line pressure drop is calculated from Eq. 4 (Kim and Smith, 2003).

1 (4)
ΔP = N p
F p0.36

where N p = 188.318ρ μ L
0.176 0.2
(5)
1.8
π
The CPA is used to select the cooling water network with minimum pressure drop. Kim
and Smith (2003) used the superstructure shown in Fig. 1(a). The superstructure is
based on single source cooling water network. By modifying the superstructure for
single source cooling water systems, a multiple sources superstructure is shown in Fig.
1(b). The CPA used by Kim and Smith (2003) is based on finding a path from source to
sink with maximum pressure drop. The maximum pressure drop path is then minimized
during optimization to obtain the network with minimum pressure drop. Eq. (6) is used
to identify the maximum pressure drop path between the source and sink.
692 K.V. Gololo & T. Majozi.

Pm − Pn ≥ ΔPmn (6)

Figure 1: Cooling water system superstructure; (a) Single source (b) Multiple sources
To cater for multiple sources and sinks, the superstructure in Fig. 1(b) is modified by
using single imaginary source and sink as shown in Fig. 2. Eq. (7) is then used to define
the pressure of source node n from the imaginary source node.

Figure 2: Multiple sources cooling water system superstructure

Eq. (8) to (11) represent the CPA adapted from Kim and Smith (2003). Eq. (12) defines
the pressure at the imaginary sink node. From this equation the imaginary sink node will
assume a value from all sink nodes with minimum pressure thus identifying a path with
maximum pressure drop. The pressure drop of this critical path is then minimized to
synthesize a cooling water network with minimum pressure drop.

Sets
i = { i |i is a cooling water using operation}
n = { n |n is a cooling tower}
PS ,img − PS ,n = ΔPimg,n (7)

PS ,n − Pin,i + LV (1 − xn,i ) ≥ ΔPn,i (8)

Pout,i ' − Pin,i + LV (1 − yi ',i ) ≥ ΔPi ',i (9)

Pin,i − Pout,i = ΔPi (10)

Pout,i − PE ,n + LV (1 − z i ,n ) ≥ ΔPi ,n (11)

Pressure Drop Consideration in Cooling Water Systems with Multiple Cooling Towers 693

x , y and z are a binary variables indicating the existence of stream from any source n/
operation i' to operation i /sink n. LV is a large value.

PE ,n − PE ,img ≥ ΔPn,img (12)

The network topology with minimum pressure drop is then synthesized by minimizing
the pressure drop between the imaginary source and sink shown in Eq. (13).

PS ,img − PE ,img = ΔP (13)

A case study is considered which involves a cooling water system with dedicated
cooling water sources and sinks. This implies that a set of heat exchanger can only be
supplied by one cooling tower. No pre-mixing or post-splitting of cooling water return
is allowed. However, reuse of water within the network is still allowed (Majozi and
Moodley, 2008). The developed mathematical model consists of bilinear terms and
binary variable thus rendering the models MINLP.

3. Solution Procedure
The solution procedure involves linearization of nonlinear terms and using results from
linearized model as a starting point for the exact MINLP. The bilinear terms in the
cooling water network model are linearized using the Reformulation Linearization
technique by Sherali and Alameddine (1992) as shown in the paper of Gololo and
Majozi (2011). However, a different technique is used to linearize the pressure drop
equations. Functions are first plotted within the operating range of the heat exchangers
and the piecewise linearization is then used to approximate the nonlinear function (Kim
and Smith, 2003).

4. Case Study
Fig. 3 shows a cooling water system consisting of three cooling towers each supplying a
set cooling water using operations. The total circulating water flowrate is 31.94 kg/s and
the overall cooling towers effectiveness is 90%.

Figure 3: Cooling water system with multiple cooling towers (Majozi and Moodley,
2008)
Fig. 4 shows synthesized cooling water system after the application of the proposed
technique. The total circulating cooling water decreased by 22% due to the exploitation
of reuse opportunities. The overall increase in cooling tower return temperature
associated with decrease in overall circulating water flowrate resulted in a 4%
694 K.V. Gololo & T. Majozi.

improvement in effectiveness. The proposed methodology does not only debottleneck

the cooling water system but also generate the network topology with the least pressure
drop. This has a potential to minimize pumping cost associated with additional
reuse/recycle streams. The pressure drop between sources and sinks ΔPS1, E1 , ΔPS 2, E 2
and ΔPS 3, E 3 is 19 kPa, 31 kPa and 43 kPa respectively.

Figure 4: Debottlenecked cooling water system with the minimum pressure drop

5. Conclusion
The mathematical model for synthesis and optimization of cooling water systems with
multiple cooling sources which takes into account the pressure drop is presented. The
proposed technique is based on the CPA and the superstructural approach. The
mathematical formulation developed yields MINLP structure. The case study showed a
22% decrease in circulating water flowrate due to the exploration of reuse opportunities.
The return cooling tower temperature was increased which resulted in 4% improvement
in the overall effectiveness. The proposed technique offers the opportunity to
debottleneck the cooling water system with multiple cooling towers while maintaining
minimum pressure drop and maximizing the overall cooling tower effectiveness.

References
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