Many buildings require cooling even in the winter months. Attentive care is needed when operating cooling towers in a subfreezing environment temperature to ignore complications. Following some fundamental guidelines can help you smoothly use any type of cooling tower, including the FRP cooling tower,even in cold conditions.
You can ask your cooling tower manufacturer or follow through with a practical guideline to sustain towers in cold-weather. Different types of tower designs have different characteristics; however, there are common practices to follow. Here are the steps you need to take to maintain your cooling tower in cold weather:
1 . Conduct Visual Inspections
Every individual cooling tower has varied needs. You should get to know regarding it in-depth, especially when it comes to cold weather conditions. There is no other option for the knowledge you can get from constant visual inspection of your cooling tower.
After a specific time, you will gain enough knowledge to verify the particular settings useful for varied loads and ambient conditions of each cooling tower, including the FRP induced cooling tower or any other.
2 . Controlling Ice Buildup
During snowfall, the ice can create an issue for the cooling tower. Ice build-up can add weight and harm the cooling tower, concrete and fill. You can manually break-off the ice that builds upon the lateral support and column as it can easily impair the tower’s structure.
One of the methods to control ice build-up is to use the heat from the industrial process itself to melt the ice. Lastly, you can slow or even turn off the remains of the ice.
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3 . Extreme Weather Procedures
In places where there are extreme cold conditions, there you can perform the standard process. The process operates each of the individual fans in reverse every two to three hours. You need to ensure that the time should not exceed more than 20 minutes.
When controlling the system, an easy method should be followed:
- The primary switch should include a group of fans to slow down or pause or shift into the reverse method. Such an ability will control each group of fans by giving them the flexibility to run an extra deicing process on areas prone to icing from direct wind or snowdrift.
- Make sure the fans deicing cycle should only run 30 minutes long to stop ice formation on blades, fans or drift eliminators.
The cooling operators should maintain a logbook that stores all the information needed to develop a cooling tower’s functional deicing strategy. Such a log should include weather conditions, pumps count, individual fan speed and also the number of fans operating it.
4 . Maintaining the Heat Load
The cold weather can harm the cooling tower because it will equalize the air wet-buld temperature. This will happen quickly with fans running and slowly with fans off. Extreme ice buildup can obstruct airflow and harm the fill, making the cooling tower ineffective.
5 . Sustaining the flow rates
The lower flow rates will result in uneven water distribution over the tower fill, causing the wet areas to freeze. As a result, it is extremely important to maintain a lower leaving water temperature that is 42 degrees during the times of cold winter months of a cooling tower.
Summing things up
One key component to know the condition of your tower is to regularly inspect it, repair it time-to-time and maintain it during the winter months. Doing so will help you keep your cooling tower energy structured and ensure that all the parts of the tower are ready for more significant changes in winters or even in hot weather conditions.
Don’t let your cooling tower fail when you need it the most. Get your cooling tower maintained, repaired or refurbished regularly with TowerTech. We are here to guide you on it.
