‫بسم هللا الرحمن الرحيم‬

(UNIT OPERATIONS LABORATORY-1)

Report (3) about:-

COOLING TOWER
Direct by: - ‫رياض الصديق علي سويسي‬

I.D:-3209119

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1. INTRODUCTION
This section briefly describes the main features of cooling towers.
1.1 What is a cooling tower?
Cooled water is needed for, for example, air conditioners, manufacturing
processes or power
generation. A cooling tower is an equipment used to reduce the temperature
of a water stream
by extracting heat from water and emitting it to the atmosphere. Cooling
towers make use of
evaporation whereby some of the water is evaporated into a moving air
stream and
subsequently discharged into the atmosphere. As a result, the remainder of
the water is cooled
down significantly (Figure 1). Cooling towers are able to lower the water
temperatures more
than devices that use only air to reject heat, like the radiator in a car, and are
therefore more
cost-effective and energy efficient.

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1.2 Components of a cooling tower
The basic components of a cooling tower include the frame and casing, fill,
cold-water basin, drift eliminators, air inlet, louvers, nozzles and fans. These
are described below.
Frame and casing. Most towers have structural frames that support the
exterior enclosures (casings), motors, fans, and other components. With
some smaller designs, such as some glass fiber units, the casing may
essentially be the frame.
Fill. Most towers employ fills (made of plastic or wood) to facilitate heat
transfer by maximizing water and air contact. There are two types of fill:
Splash fill: water falls over successive layers of horizontal splash bars,
continuously breaking into smaller droplets, while also wetting the fill
surface.
Plastic splash fills promote better heat transfer than wood splash fills.
Film fill: consists of thin, closely spaced plastic surfaces over which the
water spreads, forming a thin film in contact with the air. These surfaces
may be flat, corrugated ,honeycombed, or other patterns. The film type of
fill is the more efficient and provides same heat transfer in a smaller volume
than the splash fill.
Cold-water basin. The cold-water basin is located at or near the bottom of
the tower, and it receives the cooled water that flows down through the
tower and fill. The basin usually has a sump or low point for the cold-water
discharge connection. In many tower designs, the coldwater basin is beneath
the entire fill. In some forced draft counter flow design, however, the
water at the bottom of the fill is channeled to a perimeter trough that
functions as the coldwater basin. Propeller fans are mounted beneath the fill
to blow the air up through the tower.
With this design, the tower is mounted on legs, providing easy access to the
fans and their motors.
Drift eliminators. These capture water droplets entrapped in the air stream
that otherwise would be lost to the atmosphere.
Air inlet. This is the point of entry for the air entering a tower. The inlet may
take up an entire side of a tower (cross-flow design) or be located low on the
side or the bottom of the tower (counter-flow design).
Louvers. Generally, cross-flow towers have inlet louvers. The purpose of
louvers is to equalize air flow into the fill and retain the water within the
tower. Many counter flow tower designs do not require louvers.
Nozzles. These spray water to wet the fill. Uniform water distribution at the
top of the fill is messential to achieve proper wetting of the entire fill
surface. Nozzles can either be fixed and spray in a round or square patterns,

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or they can be part of a rotating assembly as found in some circular cross-
section towers.
Fans. Both axial (propeller type) and centrifugal fans are used in towers.
Generally, propeller fans are used in induced draft towers and both propeller
and centrifugal fans are found in forced draft towers.
Depending upon their size, the type of propeller fans used is either fixed or
variable pitch. A fan with non-automatic adjustable pitch blades can be used
over a wide
kW range because the fan can be adjusted to deliver the desired air flow at
the lowest power consumption.
Automatic variable pitch blades can vary air flow in response to changing
load conditions.

2. TYPES OF COOLING TOWERS

2.1 Natural draft cooling tower

The natural draft or hyperbolic cooling tower makes use of the difference in
temperature
between the ambient air and the hotter air inside the tower. As hot air moves
upwards through the tower (because hot air rises), fresh cool air is drawn
into the tower through an air inlet at the bottom. Due to the layout of the
tower, no fan is required and there is almost no
circulation of hot air that could affect the performance. Concrete is used for
the tower shell
with a height of up to 200 m. These cooling towers are mostly only for large
heat duties
because large concrete structures are expensive.

2.2 Mechanical draft cooling tower

Mechanical draft towers have large fans to force or draw air through
circulated water. The
water falls downwards over fill surfaces, which help increase the contact
time between the
water and the air - this helps maximize heat transfer between the two.
Cooling rates of

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mechanical draft towers depend upon various parameters such as fan
diameter and speed of
operation, fills for system resistance etc.

Mechanical draft towers are available in a large range of capacities. Towers

can be either
factory built or field erected – for example concrete towers are only field
erected.

3. Compositions

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4. Theory
Water may be cooled by the air as long as its temperature is above the
wet bulb temperature of the entering air. Markel’s theory is used which
is based on enthalpy potential difference as the driving force.
For heat transfer operation: Each particle of water is assumed to be
surrounded by a film of air and the enthalpy difference between the
film and the surrounding air provides the driving force for the cooling
process. Assume that liquid is warmer than gas.

For mass transfer operation: Each particle of water is assumed to be

surrounded by a film of air and the enthalpy difference between the
film and the surrounding air provides the driving force for the cooling
process.
The theory behind the operation of the cooling tower is the First Law of
Thermodynamics, which is the conservation of energy. In simpler terms, the
energy that enters the system must exit the system; energy can neither be
created nor destroyed, just transformed from one form to another

Energy that enters the cooling tower is in the form of hot water. (Other
energy contributions such as heat generation from friction of both air and
water, energy losses from pipes, etc. are ignored.) This hot water was cooled

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from temperature T1 to a temperature of T2. The cooling of the hot water was
in the form of forced convection3 by which ambient air at T1 was blown over
the hot water and exited the cooling tower at some temperature T2. Both the
entrance and exit temperatures of the air and water were recorded. Once this
data is recorded, an energy balance can be conducted on the system.

An energy balance is a form of bookkeeping that accounts for the energy

entering and leaving the system. The main component of the energy balance
is enthalpy which is defined as:

H = U + PV. (1)

Where H is enthalpy, U is internal energy, P is pressure, and V is volume.

The combined terms U+PV is enthalpy, which means to heat.1 Enthalpy can
be calculated or referenced from tables of data for the fluid being used. In
the Engineering 435 laboratory, the fluids used by the cooling tower are air
and water, whose enthalpy values can be obtained from a thermodynamics
textbook. For example: Since both the initial and final temperatures of the
input hot water and the output cool water were measured, the temperature
Tin can be referenced and the enthalpy (BTU/lbm, or KJ/kg) can be recorded.
The enthalpy of the output cooled water can be similarly referenced and an
energy balance can be conducted for the water.

The equation below displays the general method to conduct an energy

balance:

in = out (2)

where H = H in - H out. A similar method is employed for conducting the

energy balance for air entering and leaving the system.

The change in enthalpy for air can be determined form either of two
methods. Since the air is at low pressure, it can be treated as an ideal gas and
the enthalpy change can be calculated through the use of the following
equation:

H = Cp T (3)

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where H is the change in enthalpy, T is the change in temperature, and
Cp is the specific heat with respect to constant pressure.

Since the specific heat relation does not take into account the percent of
water in the air, a psychrometric chart is used to determine the enthalpy
change between the entrance and exit air. In order for the psychrometric
chart to be used effectively, some information is needed about the input and
output air.

The information needed to reference the psychrometric chart is the dry bulb
and wet bulb temperatures of the inlet and outlet air. Both the input and
output air flow is measured with a sling psychrometer. The sling
psychrometer is an instrument that has two thermometers. The thermometer for
measuring the wet bulb temperature has a wetted cotton sleeve over the bulb
end, while the dry bulb thermometer is a regular thermometer. Once the wet
and dry bulb temperatures of the inlet and outlet air have been measured,
each can be referenced on the psychrometric chart and the enthalpies
obtained. Once the enthalpies for the inlet and outlet water and air conditions
are known, energy balance can be conducted on the system.

5. Experimental procedure:
1) Introduce water and record its flow rate.

2) Put the heaters on so that water is heated to the required temperature.

3) Introduce air and record its flow rate.

4) Wait for steady state then record steady state dry and wet bulb

temperature of air at the entrance and exit

5) Record the inlet and outlet temperature and flow rate of water also record

temperature at different stages.

6) Change the air flow rate and repeat step 3 on

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6. ENERGY EFFICIENCY OPPORTUNITIES
A. Selecting the right cooling towers
1) Capacity
2) Range
3) Approach
4) Heat load
5) Wet bulb temperature
6) Relationship between range, flow and heat load
7) Relationship between approach and wet bulb temperature
B. Fill media effects
C. Pumps and water distribution
1) Pumps
2) Optimize cooling water treatment
3) Install drift eliminators .
D. Cooling tower fans

7. Results
There were many different experiments that were conducted. However, in most
of them, steady state operation was not reached. One set of these experiments
was run with a constant pump speed, and the fan speed was stepped up. The
data has been plotted and is shown in Appendix E. This experiment proved to
be useless to us. There were attempts to calculate an energy balance around the
cooling tower for the experiments but the results proved to be inconclusive. On
some of the experiments, the change in enthalpy of the air was negative which
means the air lost energy to the water. This is impossible according to
thermodynamics. In one of the experiments, steady state operation was
obtained. The experiment was conducted at a maximum fan speed (60 Hz) and
maximum pump speed (60 Hz). The temperature of the cooling water supply
and the cooling water return both reached a steady value. A graph of this is
shown Appendix E. The results from this experiment are shown in the table
below.

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 Table 1. Steady State Results
Steady State Data In Out

Temperature of Water (oF) 76 71

Mass Flow Rate (pounds) 53.1 53.1

Dry Bulb of Air (oF) 77 76

Wet Bulb of Air (oF) 74 76

Velocity of Air (feet) N/A 600

Using this data, the enthalpy of the different streams were calculated.

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