What is cooling tower?
A cooling tower is an essential equipment in any industry which is used to remove heat while minimizing water usage. Where water is most efficient way to dissipating unwanted heat.
Commercial buildings and industries use water to cool their HVAC and process machinery.
Where do we need cooling tower?
Cooling tower is essential equipment in almost all process industry, petrochemical industry, and in air conditioning system.
Schematic arrangement of this tower is shown below:
The cold water enters the heat ex-changer for cooling. The resulting hot water from the exchanger is sent to the cooling tower. The cold water exits the cooling tower and is sent back to the exchanger for further cooling.
How cooling tower works?
The hot water enters at the top and is distributed within the structure in a manner that exposes a very large water surface to the air passing through.
Water distribution is done using spray nozzles or distribution pans and by means of various types of fill media. The fill media is in form of plastic mesh that increase the exposed water surface maximum contact with air.
A cooling tower blows air across the mesh to have direct contact with falling water so some of water evaporates. The evaporation cools the steam of water
Both evaporation and sensible heat transfer occur as the warmer water comes into contact with the cooler air. The total heat transfer is equal to the heat of evaporation plus the sensible.
