Splash fill disrupts the flow of water to prevent it from splashing. Classifying cooling towers is a little complicated. A single cooling tower may have multiple classifications, and there are often multiple names for the same classification.
Each type of cooling tower has pros and cons for your water management system and is designed for particular applications. You may hear cooling towers referred to by the heat transfer method they use: wet, dry, fluid, closed circuit, open circuit.
Wet cooling towers, also known as open-circuit cooling towers, primarily use evaporative cooling to remove heat. Water drains or sprays into a spill area which may or may not use a fill material to increase evaporation and cooling. Evaporative cooling requires lost water to be replaced with make-up water. Fluid coolers are a type of closed-circuit cooling tower. Hot water is still diverted to the cooling tower through pipes, but when it enters the tower it remains in some form of tubing.
Fluid coolers then spray this tubing with cold water and use a mechanical draft to increase cooling. Dry cooling towers are another type of closed-circuit tower. These towers rely on airflow either mechanical draft or natural draft to cool the tubing. This allows the heat to transfer from the hot water to the tubing and then to the air. Dry cooling towers are best suited for facilities in arid locations, where water is scarce, expensive, or too essential to the environment.
Hybrid cooling towers are highly versatile, and can switch between dry and wet cooling. This prevents a facility from becoming dependent on water-based cooling in climates where the availability or cost of water fluctuates drastically with the seasons. Cooling towers are sometimes referred to by the interaction between the air flow and water flow: crossflow and counterflow. They may also be called by the method they use to create that airflow: mechanical draft, induced draft, forced draft, natural draft, and fan-assisted natural draft.
Crossflow cooling towers collect your hot water in basins on top of the tower, then use gravity-fed distribution to drain it into your fill material. As water passes through the fill, air flows horizontally, perpendicular to the water flow. The water drains down, and the air flows across—hence, crossflow. Uneven distribution can create channels in the fill material, where water flows in fixed streams and has a greater risk of freezing in cold weather or scaling from mineral deposits.
In a crossflow cooling tower, specialists have plenty of room to maneuver and inspect your cool water basin, drift eliminators, and other key components. They may even have full-size access doors and mechanical platforms for working on the fan, gearbox, and other hard-to-reach parts.
Perhaps most importantly, the gravity-fed distribution system allows you to use smaller pumps and requires less maintenance, so crossflow cooling towers tend to cost less—both initially and over time. Counterflow cooling towers draw in air from underneath the fill material and direct it vertically, so the air flows up and the water flows down—hence, counterflow. They may also give you more options for fill material—which your water quality may require.
The downside is that despite being more efficient, counterflow cooling towers actually cost more because of the greater pump requirements and maintenance related to the pressurized water distribution system the spray nozzles. Additionally, when water flow is low, it disrupts the spray from the nozzles, causing uneven distribution and channeling in the fill material—thus increasing the risk of ice build-up in cold weather or scaling from high mineral concentrations.
They also produce more noise as the water sprays from the tower ceiling and tends to have farther to fall. With induced draft, air enters the cooling tower slowly and exits quickly. Cooling towers are normally required to transfer the heat from power plants to other process and then to the atmosphere. By using the wasted stream of heat that is intended for cooling towers to generate vortex provides the idea of pulling out additional energy by refusing the heat to the colder upper troposphere.
There is always potential to used wasted heat as additional fuel for atmospheric vortex engines whenever there is a cooling tower present or if there a abundant heat source available.
At the base of a natural waterspout, spray from warm sea water transfers sensible and latent heat to the rising air column. An atmospheric vortex engine simulates this natural heat transfer process using proven technology adapted from the cooling tower industry.
Although, there is a chance that you will need to make modifications to the tangential air inlet ducts. These changes are required to make the air rise and create a spinning motion.
It would only take a couple of minor modifications to convert cooling towers into atmospheric vortex engines. This section has moved to a different post; View this post to see the list of cooling tower parts and functions. For specific information on how Cooling Tower Products can meet your cooling tower needs, contact your local Cooling Tower Products Representative or give us a call today at We offer cooling tower services in Arizona but can ship cooling tower parts worldwide.
Ever wondered how do cooling towers work? Here we explain in full detail how does a cooling tower work, cooling tower working principles with example text, pictures and diagrams. How are cooling towers relate to Atmospheric Vortex Engines? The product list provides an overview of towers to help you determine which is right for your application.
Crossflow Cooling Towers. These basins are universally applied on all crossflow towers. Counterflow Cooling Towers. Induced Draft vs. Forced Draft Cooling Towers. Induced draft cooling towers have fans that are typically mounted on top of the unit and pull air through the fill media. Conversely, air is pushed by blowers located at the base of the air inlet face on forced draft towers.
Factory Assembled FAP vs. Field-erected cooling towers FEP Field-erected towers are primarily constructed at the site of ultimate use. All large cooling towers, and many of the smaller towers, are prefabricated, piece-marked, and shipped to the site for final assembly. The manufacturer usually provides labor and supervision for final assembly. Field-erected towers can be crossflow or counterflow, depending on the application.
For power and heavy industrial applications, the field-erected Marley F counterflow tower can be customized to meet your exact specifications for performance, structure, drift and plume abatement. Performance Drivers. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits.
Manage consent. Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. Fluid Cooling Systems. Knowledge center. Types Cooling towers can be divided into types in different ways: based on the fan type, shape, water flow or efficiency, cooling water composition
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