Technical Services Department

COOLING TOWER

WHY WATER IS USED FOR COOLING ?

Several factors make water an excellent coolant.

1. It is normally plentiful, readily available and inexpensive.
2. It is easily handled.
3. It can carry large amount of heat per unit volume.
4. It does not expand or compress significantly within normal encountered
temperatures ranges.
5. It does not decompose.

BASIC PRINCIPLE
In a cooling tower, heat and mass transfer processes combine to cool the water. The mass
transfer due to evaporation does consume water, but the amount of loss is very less.

The heat-transfer process involves

Ø Latent heat transfer owing to vaporization of a small portion of the water and
Ø 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, then, the wet-bulb temperature is the
lowest theoretical temperature to which the water can be cooled. Practically, the cold
water temperature approaches but does not equal the wet-bulb temperature of air in a
cooling tower; this is so because it is impossible to contact all the water with fresh air as
the water drops through the wetted fill surface to the basin.

APPROACH

The difference between the wet bulb temperature of the ambient air and the water
temperature leaving the tower is termed as “Approach”. The approach is a function of
cooling tower capability; a large cooling tower will produce a closer approach (colder
leaving water) for a given heat load, flow rate, and entering air condition.

The magnitude of approach to the wet-bulb temperature is dependent on tower design.

Important factor are…
Ø Air-to-water contact time.
Ø Amount of fill surface.
Ø Breakup of water into droplets.

In actual practice, cooling tower are seldom designed for approaches closer than 2.8 deg
C.

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TYPES OF COOLING TOWER

(A) NATURAL DRAFT TOWERS

A cooling tower in which air movement is essentially dependent upon the difference in
density between the entering air and internal air. The air leaving the stack is lighter than the
ambient air, and a draft is created by chimney effect drawing fresh air at the base of the
tower.
Natural draft tower commo nly operate at air-pressure difference in the region of 0.2 in water
gauge when under full load. The mean velocity of the air above the tower packing is
generally about 1.2 to 1.8 m/s.

The cooling in natural-draft tower is dependent upon the relative humidity as well as on the
wet-bulb temperature. The draft will increase through the tower at high- humidity conditions
because of the increase in available static pressure difference to promote air flow against
internal resistance. Thus the higher the humidit y at a given wet bulb, the colder the outlet
water will be for a given set of conditions.

(B) MECHANICAL DRAFT TOWERS

Two types of mechanical draft towers are in use today

(1) FORCED DRAFT TOWER

Here the fan is mounted at the base, and the air is forced in at the bottom and
discharged at low velocity through the top. This arrangement has the advantage of
locating the fan and drive outside the tower, where it is convenient of inspection,
maintenance and repairs.

Since the equipment is out of the hot, humid top area of the tower, the fan is not
subjected to corrosive conditions. However, because of the low exit-air velocity,
the forced-draft tower is subjected to excessive re-circulation of the humid
exhaust vapours back into the air intakes. Since the wet-bulb temperature of the
exhaust air is considerably above the wet-bulb temperature of the ambient air,
there is a decrease in performance evidenced by an increase in cold (leaving)
water temperature.

(2) INDUCED DRAFT TOWER

In induced draft towers, air is drawn into the tower by a fan mounted at the top of
the tower. This design permits more uniform internal distribution of air and
avoids the problem of re-circulation of exhaust air into the tower.

Induced draft tower is further classified into counter-flow and cross-flow design,
depending on the relative flow directions of water and air. Thermodynamically,
the counter- flow arrangement is more efficient, since the coldest water contacts
the coldest air, thus obtaining maximum enthalpy potential. The cross-flow-tower
can be characterized at very low approaches by increasing the air quantity. The
increase in air flow is not necessarily achieved by increasing the air velocity but
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primarily by lengthening the tower to increase the air- flow cross-sectional area.
The economic choice between counter- flow and cross-flow is determined by the
effectiveness of the fill, design condition, and the cost of the tower manufacture.

PERFORMANCE

Performance of a cooling tower is usually expressed in “ 1GPM” cooled from a

specified hot water temperature to a specified cold water temperature with a
specific wet-bulb temperature.

The performance of a cooling tower is governed by the ratio of the weights of air
to water and the time of contact between water and air. In commercial practice,
the variation in the ratio of air to water is first obtained by keeping the air velocity
constant at about 350 ft2 / (min*ft2 of active tower area). As a secondary
operation, air velocity is varied to make the tower accommodate the cooling
requirement.

Time of contact between water and air is governed largely by the time required
for the water to discharge from the nozzles and fall through the tower to the basin.
The time of contact is therefore obtained in a given type of unit by varying the
height of the tower.

The cooling performance of any tower containing a given depth of filling varies
with the water concentration. It has been found that maximum contact and
performance are obtained with a tower having a water concentration of 2 to 5 gal /
min. per square feet of ground area.

The required tower size is a function of the following.

Ø Cooling range.
Ø Approach to wet-bulb temperature.
Ø Quantity of water to be cooled.
Ø Air velocity through the cell.
Ø Tower height.

COOLING TOWER OPERATION

Ø WATER MAKEUP
Makeup water requirement for a cooling tower consists of the
summation of evaporation loss, drift loss and blowdown

Wm = Wc + Wd + Wb
(consistent units m3/hr or gal/min)

Wm = Make-up water.
Wc = Evaporation loss.
Wd = Drift loss.
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Wb = Blowdown

o Evaporation loss can be estimated by the following equation

Wc = 0.00085 Wc(T1 – T2)
Where,
Wc = Circulating water flow, gal/min at tower inlet
T1 – T2 = Inlet-water temperature minus outlet-water
temperature, Deg F (Range)

o Drift is entrained water in the tower discharge vapours

Drift loss typically varies between 0.1 and 0.2 percent of the
water supply to the tower.

Drift eliminator serves to remove entrained moisture from the

discharged air. New developments in eliminator design make it
possible to reduce drift loss below 0.1 %.

o BLOWDOWN
Blowdown discards a portion of the concentrated circulating
water due to the evaporation process in order to lower the
system solids concentration.

The average water loss by blowdown is 0.5 to 3 % of the

circulating water.
The amount of blowdown can be calculated according to the
number of Cycles of Concentration (COC) required to limit
scale formation.

Cycle of concentration is the ratio of dissolved solids in the re-

circulating water to dissolved solids in the make-up water.
Since chlorides remain soluble on concentration, cycles of
concentration are best expressed as the ratio of the chloride
content of the circulating and makeup waters.

Thus Cycle of concentration = (Wc + Wb) / Wb

And blowdown Wb = Wc / (COC – 1)

Cycle of concentration involved with cooling tower operation

normally range from three to five cycles. Below three cycles of
concentration excessive blowdown quantities are required and
the addition of chemicals to limit scale formation should be
considered

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COOLING TOWER PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

In cooling towers, the major causes for concern are delignification (loss of the
binding agent for the cellulose) caused by the use of oxidizing biocides, such as
chlorine, excessive bicarbonate alkalinity, biological growth, which can clog the
nozzles and foul the heat exchange equipment, corrosion of the metal
components, general fouling by a combination of silt, clay, oil and precipitation of
salts or oxides on surfaces.
The treatment techniques to prevent these conditions from occurring are listed in
the table below

PROBLEM FACTORS CAUSATIVE CORRECTIVE

AGENT TREATMENT
Wood Microbiological Cellulolytic fungus Fungicides
deterioration Chemical Chlorine Acid
Biological Temperature Bacteria Chlorine
growth Nutrients Fungi Organic sulfurs
pH Algae Quaternary
Inocula Ammonia

General fouling Suspended solids Silt Polyelectrolytes

Water oil Polyacrylates
Velocity Lignosulfonates
Temperature Polyphosphates
Contaminants
Metal oxides
Corrosion Aeration Oxygen Chromate
PH Carbon dioxide Zinc
Temperature Polyphosphate
Dissolved solids Tannins
Galvanic couples Lignins
Synthetic organic
Compounds
Scaling Calcium Calcium carbonate Phosphonate
Alkalinity Calcium sulfate Polyphosphates
Temperature Magnesium silicate Acid
pH Ferric hydroxide Polyelectrolytes

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OPTIMISATION

The cooling tower is an air-to-water heat exchanger. The controlled variables are the
supply and return water temperature, and the manipulated variables are the air and water
flow rates.

In most cooling tower design, pumps are frequently constant speed with three-way or
bypass valves used to circulate the excess water, which should not have been pumped in
the first place because the process does not require it. Meeting a variable load with a
constant supply by wasting the excess is also frequently practiced in fan operation. In
some installations, fan speeds cannot be changed at all which leads to high power
consumption.

As the rating of the tower fans and pumps usually adds up to several hundred
horsepower, their yearly operating cost is in the lakhs of rupees.

The cost of fan operation can be reduced by allowing the cooling tower temperature to
rise, there by increasing the approach. If the actual total operating cost is plotted against
approach, the fan costs tend to drop and the pumping costs tend to rise with an increase in
approach. If the operating cost is also affected by cooling water temperature then the total
cost model should also consider that effect. Once a total operating curve is found the
optimum approach is that which corresponds to the minimum point on that curve.

Fan operation can also be minimized by using variable speed motor, thus enabling to
operate the fan at lower speed during winter. Similarly temperature controller can also be
provided to minimize the fan operation.