Cooling towers are one special kind of heat exchanger that allows water and air to come in contact while lowering the temperature of the hot water. In short, a cooling tower cools down the water that gets overheated due to the industrial process. Even with so many variations of cooling towers available today the workings principles remain common in every way. Due to which the buyer finds it extremely daunting to choose from many of the cooling tower services.
Howbeit, there are three major factors that will narrow down your options to a much manageable number.
The Capacity and Performance
This is one important feature to consider for any cooling tower service. However, considering this factor depends on every individual’s requirement. Investing in a larger capacity tower is an essential need because returning overly warm water will stop cooling tower supplies from working properly and even damage your system.
You can measure capacity in tons. The number of tons of ice that could be used to melt to remove heat is how you measure the capacity of a cooling tower. It can also be measured in terms of its flow rate, which measures the amount of water that it can handle in gallons per minute. Overall, the capacity should be higher so that its enough to handle all of the water flowing through your cooling system.
Performance can be measured through its approach. Calculate the performance by the range of a cooling tower, that is by the difference in the temperature between the hot water entering the cooling tower and then the cooling water removed from it. Its a difference between the output temperature of the water and the wet-bulb temperature of the air used to cool the water.
Tower Size
The cooling tower you choose needs to be fit into the space that you have chosen for it. Mostly every location is suitable for a cooling tower but makes sure that the air intakes should be nearer to the structural wall, while the tower should be away from the building’s air intakes. The footprint of the cooling tower is an important aspect to consider while you place the tower.
Height matters for indoor cooling, however, proper care should be taken care of it. Like the fan, discharge should be above the level of the nearby walls.
Lastly, if you are looking to save place choose the counterflow cooling towers. This system uses the pressurized nozzles to spray the water vertically downwards via the fins against an upwards flow of air. Such a cooling tower system has a smaller footprint than the others. However, this system also has limited maintenance access, hence it becomes difficult to clean the tower basins.
Open Circuit or Close Circuit
Open circuit cooling towers pass water from the cooling system straight through the tower, to the outside air. While the closed circuit cooling tower system uses a separate heat exchanger loop in the middle of the water circuit to cool down the building and the flow of air from outside.
If you are looking for a simpler design, open circuit cooling towers are the best choice and also they are cost-effective. Not to forget that the simpler design also saves money. But, such systems can easily allow contaminants from outside into the entire cooling circuit, so they may not be suitable for high-pollution areas.
On the other hand for the closed circuit cooling tower, the cooling circuit water is maintained inside a coil that is cooled by spraying water, keeping it separated from any outside air. Thus, making the fouling less likely to happen, meaning that cooling tower maintainers can use up less time cleaning cooling tower fins.
Summary,
All the cooling towers are usually designed to fulfill specific purposes. Due to every tower having its own unique features, not all cooling towers work for all applications or industrial processes.
In the above article, you will get a clear idea of the variations of each cooling tower supplies. It will help you comprehend to know the variety of cooling towers. You can learn there advantages/disadvantages and decide which cooling tower type is right for your industrial process.
Check out the cooling tower parts list that gives you an overview of cooling tower types to help you figure out which tower is the correct choice for your industrial application.
