Cooling tower basics, at the end of this, post your concepts related to cooling towers will be all clear. Probably you might hear about cooling towers somewhere. Where ever cooling required cooling tower will be used. but please remember there are types of cooling, Air-cooled, and water-cooled. Out of these two types of cooling systems, water-cooled systems most preferred and used. there are several reasons for that.
Also, check how to calculate cooling tower tonnage.
Air-cooled Vs water cooled systems (Advantages)
Water-cooling systems more efficient than air-cooled systems
Water cooled have higher COP (Coefficient of performance) than air-cooled systems.
Types of cooling towers
Cooling towers can be classified based on the following classifications.
i) Natural draft and mechanical draft
ii) Induced draft and Forced draft
The fan is one of the most prominent parts of the cooling tower. This classification is based on fan type.
iii) Cross-flow and counter flow
Classification is based on the type of water and airflow.
Most used cooling tower type?
For industrial/ commercial cooling mostly mechanical draft with induced draft cooling towers is being used. Now only two types of cooling towers are left, which are cross-flow and counter-flow cooling towers. We shall see the difference between a cross-flow cooling tower and a counter-flow cooling tower. which one will be best for your cooling need? let me know in the comment section. now let’s go to see the difference between
Cross-flow cooling tower (Most widely used cooling tower type)
In cross-flow, cooling tower water flows from top to bottom and air flows from side to top. which is each other in perpendicular. like shown in the following diagram.
Cross-flow towers use gravity water distribution for hot water coming from condensers.
The advantage over counter flow while installing in multi-cell. Cross-flow cooling towers can be installed in multi-cell very easily (in case of future expansion)
Easy for maintenance, the service person can walk from one end to another through towers
Less drift loss compare to counterflow
Counter flow cooling tower
In counter flow, cooling tower water passes from the top to the cool water basin, where air flows from all 4 sides to the top (from the bottom). it crosses each other in counter /parallel.
counter flow cooling uses less space as compared to cross-flow towers. hence counter flow cooling towers are the best choice when space is limited.
for winter applications, counterflow gives several advantages over cross-flow towers.
For multi-cell installation height of towers need to increase in order to compensate for blocked air inlet sides.