Cooling towers are a very efficient way to remove waste heat from buildings. They are used to cool large buildings of all kinds including factories, shopping malls and office buildings. How cooling towers are built will depend a lot on the specific design, but all cooling towers use the flow of air to cool down the warm water circulating through the cooling system.
What Types Of Cooling Tower Are There?
Open circuit cooling towers – they use airflow to cool the warm water used in the cooling circuit. Closed-circuit cooling towers use a heat exchanger coil between the warm water and the outside air. This is often how cooling towers work with a chiller, as it keeps any environmental debris out of the coolant.
Induced draft cooling towers – they use exhaust fans positioned at the top of the cooling tower to draw air through. Forced draft cooling towers use a fan at the intake to force air through the cooling tower. This allows for a smaller tower overall, but is less efficient and may cause air recirculation issues if the tower is poorly designed.
Crossflow towers – they use fans to direct airflow horizontally across the fill, cooling the water as it flows downwards. Counterflow towers draw air through vertically upwards, directly against the flow of water. This allows for a taller tower with a smaller footprint, making it a good option for some spaces. However, it requires pressurized nozzles to spray the water while a crossflow design can rely on gravity.
Splash fills – they are designed to break up the flow of water into droplets to increase its surface area for more efficient cooling. Film fills increase the water’s surface area by directing it to form very thin layers on sheets. Film fill cools the water more efficiently but contaminated water will leave residue on the sheets, requiring regular maintenance.
Although there are several options, how a cooling tower works are important when determining the cooling tower needed for your building.
How Are Cooling Towers Built?
Smaller cooling towers are often pre-assembled at the factory and shipped in as close to a finished state as possible with minimal on-site assembly required. This is typically how cooling towers are built for businesses with smaller cooling needs, although larger modular cooling towers can be shipped module by module.
So how are cooling towers built if you need a larger tower? Field-erected cooling towers are manufactured in pieces and then assembled on site. If the completed cooling tower wouldn’t fit on the back of a truck, it makes sense to assemble it on site instead. Manufacturers often provide the necessary labor, so the clients don’t necessarily need to know how cooling towers are built.
How Does a Cooling Tower Work In a Power Plant?
Many people have seen the large cooling towers used to cool power plants. These are very different in design to the cooling towers used to cool factories and office buildings. Instead of forcing air through the tower using fans, these natural draft cooling towers rely on the natural tendency of warm air to rise as it is less dense than cooler air. This allows airflow to be created entirely naturally, meaning that the running cost of one of these towers can be very low.
So how are cooling towers built to maximize natural draft? The main factor is that they have to be tall to create a large difference in air density between the top and bottom of the tower. Some of the largest ones are around 650 feet tall. Cooling towers this big have to be very strong and stable, which is why they have their distinctive inwardly curved shape. Their size also makes natural draft cooling towers totally impractical for anything except large power plants, oil refineries, and other huge industrial facilities. However, some hybrid cooling towers use fans to assist a natural draft, and these can be built somewhat smaller.
Do you need a cooling tower rebuilt, upgraded or maintained? Contact Pinnacle Cooling Tower Service to arrange your free inspection and estimate.
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To learn more about cooling tower maintenance or to find out how we can help when it comes to routine cooling tower service and maintenance, contact Pinnacle Cooling Tower Service today at 732-570-9392. Our primary goals are safety, service, and customer satisfaction.
