What is a Cooling tower?
A cooling tower is a heat removal device that removes heat from the building by spraying water down the tower. The hot air comes from the sides of the cooling tower and passes from the falling water, which cools down the water while some of the heat is exchanged and released into the atmosphere by evaporation. The cooled water is accumulated at the bottom of the building and is used again in the plant.
Why are cooling towers needed?
The rate of consumers is increasing day by day with an increase in population. So, the industries and manufacturing units are forced to produce more and more goods day by day. Production of these goods escalates the temperature in the manufacturing units, and that’s where cooling towers come into usage.
The heat produced by these industries must be constantly cooled down for the machines to function efficiently. An effective, efficient, and economical solution to this problem is the installation of an evaporative cooling tower in the manufacturing unit to remove excess heat from the system. Cooling towers are used in petroleum refineries, natural gas processing plants, food processing plants, chemical industries, textile industries, petrochemical plants, glass manufacturing plants, rubber manufacturing plants, metal industries, etc.
Types of cooling tower
There are various types of cooling towers used in several industries based on the plant’s requirements and functioning of the cooling towers. Classification of cooling towers is done based on a) Air draft and b) Air flow pattern.
a) Based on air draft: Cooling towers based on air draft have two types: natural draft cooling tower and mechanical draft cooling tower.
- Natural draft cooling tower: It relies on the natural arrangement to circulate air in the tower, which cools the water in the system. The difference in density of the moist air and cool air makes the moist air from the system escalate to the higher level of the tower while the cool air flows to the bottom layer of the tower, which creates a cycle of airflow.
- Mechanical draft cooling tower: It uses fans to control the circulation of the air in the tower. Mechanical draft cooling towers are more efficient than natural draft cooling towers but are also more expensive and consume more power than natural draft cooling towers. Mechanical cooling towers can be classified into two types, namely, Induced cooling towers and Forced cooling towers.
b) Based on airflow pattern: Cooling towers based on airflow pattern have two types: Crossflow and counterflow.
- Crossflow cooling tower: Air moves horizontally while the hot water flows in a downward direction in the crossflow cooling tower.
- Counterflow cooling tower: Air moves upward, and water flows downward to cool down the air in the counterflow cooling tower.
Benefits of cooling tower
Cooling towers have always been a significant component of various industries and manufacturing units. To understand more about why cooling towers are so popular among industries, let’s have a look at some of its major advantages as mentioned below:
- Efficient system working: Cooling tower used with water treatment system removes all the hazardous chemicals from water and makes it decontaminated. This keeps the cooling tower parts clean and corrosion-free for a longer time, preparing the system to work at more optimum levels.
- Less maintenance required: Due to clean and corrosion-free cooling tower parts, the frequency of the requirement of maintaining a cooling tower is reduced, and the maintenance cost is also reduced.
- Life of the system extends: The water treatment system used in the cooling tower doesn’t allow the chemicals to deposit, which keeps the system corrosion-free and extends the life of the whole system.
- Less energy consumption: With water treatment plants in cooling towers, the water is re-circulated again and again to ensure that the system is clean enough to work at its full capacity and less energy is used to achieve more output.
- Saves water: Unfiltered water has a high chemical deposit content that has to be flushed through the rushing water to prevent corrosion in the system. Water lost in this process has to be constantly refilled to keep the system running which can constitute too many gallons of water each year. Using an effective filtration system can reduce the amount of blowdown required in the system and save a huge amount of water in the process.
Conclusion
Cooling towers will always remain a significant part of all the industrial plants, and installation of a cooling tower will always be profitable for these industrial plans. Towertech Cooling Systems Pvt. Ltd. in India is one such company to have cooling tower manufacturing units, cooling tower spare parts, cooling tower supplies, cooling tower services, and many more products of cooling towers, making it a one-stop-shop for all your cooling towers requirements.
