COOLING TOWERS

A cooling tower is a specialized heat exchanger in which air and water are
brought into direct contact with each other in order to reduce the water's temperature.
Warm water from the heat source is pumped to the water distribution system at
the top of the tower. The water is distributed over the wet-deck fill by means of nozzles.
Simultaneously, air is drawn through air-inlet louvers and through the wet-deck surface
causing a small portion of the water to evaporate. The evaporative process removes
heat from the water. The warm, moist air is drawn out of the top of the tower. The
resulting cold water is then recirculated back through the heat source in a continuous
cycle.
Cooling towers differ in shape, directions of flow, and the way the gas stream
enters. Cooling towers can be in the countercurrent or crossflow directions. Cooling
towers can also either be natural draft, meaning that gas naturally flows into the tower,
or mechanical draft, meaning that devices, typically fans, bring gas and liquid into the
device at set rates. These differences are described in types of cooling towers below.

PARTS OF A COOLING TOWER

Cold water basin:

Cold water basin is normally made up of reinforced cement concrete (RCC). It
has got two functions. One is to collect the cold water from tower and acts as
storage. The other is being strong it acts as a foundation for the main structure of
cooling tower. The cold basin is either lies on the top of the soil or lies below the
ground level. The height of the cooling tower is determined from the distance
between the top of the cold basin to fan assembly.

Cooling Tower Fill Media:

Cooling tower fill is the main heat transfer area available for heat transfer from
hot water to cold air. There are two types of fills available namely splash fills &
film fills. Splash fills disintegrates the hot water from vertical direction and it splits
the water to pass through next level of splash bars. Film fills forms thin vertical
film of water to make the air to contact in with to aid heat transfer. Fills are
normally made of PVC, polypropylene or wood.

Cooling Tower Drift Eliminators:

The purpose of drift eliminator is to reduce the drift loss in cooling tower. Drift
eliminators normally kept next to fills in the air flow path thereby reducing the drift
loss. Drift loss is the loss of entrained water through hot air to atmosphere. Drift
eliminators normally made up of PVC. More number of passes through drift
eliminator decreases the drift loss but increases the pressure drop thereby
increasing fan power consumption.

Cooling Tower Nozzles:

Plastics are widely used for nozzles. Many nozzles are made of PVC, ABS,
polypropylene, and glass-filled nylon. Nozzles are used to provide uniform
distribution of hot water inside a cell of a cooling tower. Recent advancement of
the design involves a non-clogging type nozzle.
Air Inlet Louvers
Louvers are made up of asbestos sheets. It serves two purposes. One is to retain
circulating water within the tower, and other is to equally distribute the air flow
into the fill.
Distribution Valves:
Distribution Valves are used to regulate the hot water flow to distribute evenly in
cells. The outlet is open to atmosphere. Valve body is designed to withstand the
adverse corrosive environment. Valve should pose minimum pressure drop.
Cooling Tower Fans
Cooling tower fans are used to force or push large amounts of air throughout the
cooling tower. They must be built to withstand the corrosive effects in which the
environment that they operate. These fans are usually loud but there are certain
types of low-sound cooling tower fans. Cooling tower fans are used in crossflow,
counter flow, induced/forced draft cooling towers. Natural draft cooling towers
don't need fans because they use the natural air flow and different processes that
cool the water.
Drive Shafts
The drive shaft transmits power from the output shaft of the motor to the input
shaft of gear reduction units.
Gear Box
Gear box reduces the speed of the depending on the fan requirement. Torque
tube unitized supports gives permanent alignment of the motor, driveshaft & gear
reducer.

HOW COOLING TOWERS WORK

Figure 1.
Cooling tower
Source: www.coolingtowersproducts.com

Most cooling towers work based on the principle of "evaporative cooling".

Evaporative cooling is the process where warm water from an industrial process
is pumped up to the top of the cooling tower where the water distribution system is. The
water then gets distributed by cooling tower nozzles to the wet deck. At the same time,
air is being drawn through the air-inlet louvers forcing water to evaporate. Evaporation
causes the heat to be removed from the make up water. The hot air naturally rises out
of the tire.

CLASSIFICATION OF COOLING TOWERS

Counterflow means that the flow of air is parallel and opposite in the direction to
the flow of water being cooled. This results in a greater thermal efficiency than
crossflow designs. Counterflow cooling towers are used for air-conditioning,
process cooling, and power generation. They can be seen in steel industries,
automotive foundries, and waste-to-energy plants.
In crossflow cooling tower systems the water vertically flows through the fill
media while the air horizontally flows across the falling water. That's why they call
it "crossflow" because the air and water cross paths or flows. Because of the
crossing of flows, the air doesn't need to pass through the distribution system.
Crossflow cooling towers are used extensively, such as in:
o Air conditioning and refrigeration systems
o Chemical and industrial processes

o
o
o
o

Plastic industry processes

Dairy, citrus, and other food industry processing
Jacket water cooling for engines and air compressors
Batch and welder cooling

TYPES OF COOLING TOWERS

Natural Draft Cooling Tower

Figure 2.Natural Draft Cooling Tower

Source: http://www.hamon.com/medias/upload/images/NaturalDraft(5).jpg

As their name implies, natural draft cooling towers rely on natural convection to
circulate air throughout the tower, which then cools the water. Air movement occurs due

to differences in density between the entering air and the internal air within the tower.
Warm, moist air, which is more dense than cool air, will naturally rise through the tower,
while the dry, cool air from outside will fall, creating a constant cycle of air flow.

Advantages:
o
o
o
o

No energy consumption for fans operation

No recirculation
Low costs of maintenance and spare parts
Low thermal energy waste

Disadvantages:
o Higher investment costs
o Large overall dimensions that could cause difficulties with area aesthetics and
requirement of large areas for tower installation

Mechanical Draft Cooling Tower

Fig 3. Induced Draft Cooling Tower Diagram

Source: http://www.coolingtowerproducts.com/blog/how-cooling-towers-work-diagrampictures-2015.htm#7
The mechanical draft cooling towers are very much similar to that of the natural
draft cooling towers. As the name indicates, air is circulated inside the tower

mechanically instead of natural circulation. Propeller fans or centrifugal fans may be

used.
The mechanical draft towers use either single or multiple fans to provide flow of a
known volume of air through the tower. Thus, their thermal performance tends toward
greater stability, and is affected by the fewer psychrometric variables, than that of the
atmospheric towers. The presence of fans also provides a means of regulating air low,
to compensate for changing atmospheric and load conditions by fan capacity
manipulation and or cycling.
Mechanical draft, which uses power driven fan motors to force or draw air
through the tower.The mechanical draft towers can have its fan located on the inlet air
side or on the exit air side.
The type of fan selected, either centrifugal or axial, depends on external pressure
needs, permissible sound levels, and energy usage requirements. Water is downflow;
the air may be upflow (counterflow heat transfer) or horizontal flow (cross-flow heat
transfer). Air entry may be through one, two, three, or all four sides of the tower. All four
combinations (i.e., forced-draft counterflow, induced-draft counterflow, forced-draft
cross-flow, and induced-draft cross-flow) have been produced in various sizes and
configurations.
TWO KINDS OF MECHANICAL DRAFT COOLING TOWER
1 Forced Draft Cooling Tower (fans on the inlet air side)
2 Induced Draft Cooling Tower (Fans on the exit air side)

FORCED DRAFT COOLING TOWER

A mechanical draft cooling tower with a blower type fan at the intake. The fan
forces air into the tower, creating high entering and low exiting air velocities. The low

exiting velocity is much more susceptible to recirculation. With the fan on the air intake,
the fan is more susceptible to complications due to freezing conditions.
Another disadvantage is that a forced draft design typically requires more motor
power than the equivalent induced draft design. The forced draft benefit is its ability to
work with high static pressure.

Fig. 3. Forced Draft Cooling Tower

Source:http://www.brighthubengineering.com/hvac/100882-hvacr-cooling-towers-andtheir-types/#imgn_2
In this system, fan is located near the bottom and on the side. This fan forces the
air from bottom to top. An eliminator is used to prevent loss of water droplets along with
the forced air. Moreover, in this type of mechanical draft cooling towers, the air is
pushed/forced by the blowers at the bottom of the air inlet louver.
Types of Forced Draft Cooling Tower
1 Counterflow
2 Crossflow

Fig. 4 Conventional Mechanical Forced-Draft Cooling Towers

Fig. 5 Factory-Assembled Counterflow Forced-Draft Tower

Source:http://www.me.ua.edu/me416/s09/pdf/ASHRAE2008EquipmentCoolingTowers.pdf

In counterflow cooling tower system processes, the air vertically flows

upwards, counter to the water flow in the fill media. Due to the air flowing vertically, it's
not possible to use the basin's gravity-flow like in crossflow towers or the gravity-flow
basins. Insstead, these towers use pressurized spray systems, usually pipe-type, to
spray the water on top of the fill media. The pipes and cooling tower nozzles are usually
spread farther apart so they will not restrict any air flow.

Fig. 6 Counterflow tower

http://spxcooling.com/coolingtowers

In crossflow cooling tower systems the water vertically flows through the fill
media while the air horizontally flows across the falling water. That's why they call it
"crossflow" because the air and water cross paths or flows. Because of the crossing of
flows, the air doesn't need to pass through the distribution system. This permits the use
of hot water flow via gravity and distribution basins on the top of the tower right above
the fill media. The basins are a standard of crossflow cooling towers and are applied on
all units.

Fig. 7 Crossflow Tower

http://spxcooling.com/coolingtowers
INDUCED DRAFT COOLING TOWER
Induced draft cooling towers have fans that are typically mounted on top of the unit
and pull air through the fill media. Cooling water returns in a warm state from the
process and enters at the top of the cooling tower under pressure to be distributed
through the fill pack. Simultaneously, air is drawn in at the base of the tower by the fan
and travels upward to mix with the water where some evaporation takes place,
removing heat from the remainder. The warm moist air is discharged to atmosphere. 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.

Counter Flow Induced Draft Cooling Tower

In this type, hot water from condenser is coming to the cooling tower. There is a
water basin at the bottom. Air is coming from the sides and cooling the hot water.
The hot air is being carried away by the propeller fan at the top. Cooled water is
then taken out for further use.

Cross Flow Induced Draft Cooling Tower

In this type, the hot water is coming from the two sides and is being cooled and
then taken to the condenser again.

Advantages of mechanical draft cooling towers over natural draft cooling towers:

For the same capacity used, the mechanical draft cooling towers are much
smaller than the natural draft cooling towers. This is because of the
increase in cooling capacity due to increase in volume of the air being
forced out by fan.

Capacity control is possible in mechanical draft cooling tower. By

controlling the speed of the fan, the volume of air can be controlled, which
in turn controls the capacity.

The natural draft cooling towers can be located only in open space. As
they do not depend upon the atmospheric air, the mechanical draft cooling
towers shall be located even inside the building.

Disadvantages of using mechanical draft cooling towers:

More power is required to run the system,

Increased running cost due to increase in maintenance of the fans, motors

and its associated controls

Fig. 8 Natural Draft Vs. Mechanical Draft Cooling Tower

Source:http://www.coolingtowerproducts.com/blog/how-cooling-towers-work-diagrampictures-2015.htm#7
Factors Affecting Cooling Tower Performance
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Wet-Bulb Temperature
Dry-Bulb Temperature
Heat load
GPM, Range and Approach
Interference
Recirculation
Tower Siting and Orientation

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[Online] Available:

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