Guide to Choosing Cooling Towers
Cooling towers are devices typically used in industrial processes and HVAC systems for heat removal. They are defined as any device for open water recirculation that uses fans or natural draft to force or draw in air to contact and cool water through evaporation.
Cooling towers cause minimal thermal pollution and allow water circulating through a building or HVAC system to be reused. The term “cooling tower” is often associated with nuclear power plants, but they are also extensively used in many industrial power plants as well as in HVAC systems. There are many types of cooling towers in terms of size, but almost all their functions are the same.
Cooling towers use the process of evaporation and condensation to remove heat from the surroundings or from the water flowing through them. They are utilized to offer substantially lower temperatures compared to those accomplished with dry heat removal or air-cooled processes.
Because cooling towers are of great importance in any industrial facility and allow for greater efficiency and less water loss, they must be chosen with care. When used with an HVAC system in a commercial building, you will want to avoid noisy cooling towers or excess humidity in an area where people are likely to be gathering, such as an office building. These issues become common when you install poor quality cooling towers in cities like Sydney and Melbourne where most large businesses and multi-story office buildings use cooling towers.
Thanks to modern technology, such issues can be prevented. But how do you select a cooling tower which is suitable and efficient for the business? This is a challenge as not all towers are suitable for all kinds of applications. Not all cooling towers are created equal, and there are many options available. Top brands include Evapco, BAC, Shinwa, Superchill, Brentwood etc.
It is important to know and understand the different kinds and their pros and cons while selecting a cooling tower. Following are some important tips:
The right size
In the process of selecting an industrial or HVAC cooling tower, one must take care to choose the right size to optimize its benefits. Size is an important issue as cooling towers are a very effective and affordable option to reduce heat in both business and industrial applications.
Cooling towers are available in various sizes and are used for HVAC systems, petroleum refineries, food processing units, petrochemical plants, thermal and nuclear power plants. Since these towers are being increasingly used for various applications because of their cost-effectiveness to remove heat, size concerns have become crucial. The question is how big a cooling tower should be for the effective support of an application.
In many cases, selecting an undersized cooling tower may be damaging to the business. When an undersized cooling tower is not producing enough cold water to cool the HVAC system, its chiller may stop working and shut down. This will result in expensive repairs and several annoyed tenants and employees.
When the cooling tower is too small, it can lead to extensive damage to costly processing equipment. Shutdowns on this scale can cause a substantial loss of productivity. Hence, for most applications, it is important to determine and understand the suitable size of the cooling tower.
In the case of wet cooling towers, the size of the tower will depend on four metrics: wet bulb temperature (WBT), range, approach, and heat load. The majority of manufacturers employ sizing programs to determine the minimum required size of the cooling tower. The highest WBT must be used for sizing objectives in order to make the tower work efficiently in the most humid weather.
Evaluate efficiency
When selecting a cooling tower, it is important to ensure its efficiency. In most towers, including the wet metal-clad type, cooling efficiency is impacted when the use of chemicals is limited due to concerns of corrosion.
Additionally, there can be a build-up of fouling within the tower because of such limits on the use of powerful chemicals intended for removing biological growth. This impacts the efficiency of cooling.
The use of HDPE (High-Density Polyethylene) to make cooling towers is growing more and more popular. Towers fashioned from HDPE can use more aggressive chemical treatments which can help avoid issues of corrosion.
Corrosive elements in the air, saltwater, or atmosphere often damage metal-based cooling towers. This renders them less efficient and prone to unscheduled shutdowns. HDPE towers are free of such issues of corrosion. They last longer without major issues or the need to repair or replace the cooling tower every few years.
The efficiency of the cooling tower is also impacted by the tower footprint. Saving energy is vital for many brands; hence, a tower with a larger footprint that uses much less power may be the more effective and useful choice.
Noise concerns
The noise generated by a cooling tower is an important consideration. Several old cooling towers emit noise amounting to a jet plane. This does not bode well for productivity, like in an office building.
Thankfully, most modern cooling towers are fitted with the latest technology that substantially reduces any noise. Therefore, while selecting the cooling tower, keep in mind to check the noise levels.
In sum, these are some of the major aspects involved in selecting a cooling tower. Optimally performing cooling towers are of the right size, efficient, and generate less noise.
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