water loss in cooling tower

A plant may have chillers, air conditioners or other process equipments. To cool these equipments we utilize Cooling towers so that the heat from circulating water can be dissipate to the ambient air. Cooling towers rejects heat from water to the environment through evaporation. Therefore, by design & architecture, cooling towers use significant amounts of water.

Thermal efficiency and longevity of any cooling tower and their equipments depend on the management of re-circulated water.

Water leaves from cooling tower system from one of following 4 ways:-

1. Evaporation : Evaporation is the primary and for most mechanism and functionality of the tower that transfers heat from the cooling tower system to the environment. 
2.  Drift: Drift is a small quantity of water may be carried from the tower as mist or small droplets. Drift loss is small compared to evaporation and is controlled through drift eliminators.
3. Blowdown: When water evaporates from the tower, dissolved solids such as calcium, magnesium, chloride, and silica remain in the re-circulating water. As more water evaporates, the concentration of dissolved solids increases. If the concentration gets too high, the solids can cause scale to form within the system. The dissolved solids can also lead to corrosion problems. The concentration of dissolved solids is controlled by removing a portion of the highly concentrated water and replacing it with fresh make-up water. Carefully monitoring and controlling the quantity of blow down provides the most significant opportunity to conserve water in cooling tower operations.
4. Basin leaks or overflows: Properly operated towers should not have leaks or overflows. Check float control equipment to ensure the basin level is being maintained properly, and check system valves to make sure there are no unaccounted for losses.

The sum of water that is lost from the tower must be replaced by make-up water:

Make-Up = Evaporation + Blowdown + Drift

A key parameter used to evaluate cooling tower operation is "cycle of concentration" sometimes referred to as cycle or concentration ratio. This is determined by calculating the ratio of the concentration of dissolved solids in the blow down water compared to the make-up water. Because dissolved solids enter the system in the make-up water and exit the system in the blow down water, the cycles of concentration are also approximately equal to the ratio of volume of make-up to blow down water.

Other loses are:

• Water drops carried off by airflow in the form of moist or drift.
• Drift release is not controlled
• Valve leak
• Drawndown/Draw-off

Get expert advice to help determine if a cooling tower required maintenance. Call us or mail us to have a discussion.

L K Chatuvedi
CEO - Wetpoint Aqua Equipments (P) Ltd
Manufacturer of all kind of Industrial Cooling Towers and Spares
Phone: +91-9302.214.784
Email: ceo@wetpointcoolingtowers.com

Cooling Tower Water Distribution

Cooling towers are mechanical devices that are used to reduce the temperature of hot water. We can also interpret cooling tower as heat exchangers that use air and water to transfer heat from systems to outdoor environment.

Hot water from the system is delivered to the top of the cooling tower by the condenser pump via distribution pipes. In an open cooling tower, the hot water is sprayed through nozzles/flower nozzles onto the heat transfer medium i.e. fills/splash bars, in cooling towers we use fills/splashbars inside the cooling tower. Some towers feed the nozzles/flower nozzles through pressurized pipes; while other use gravity to ensure the feed of nozzles/flower nozzles. In this mechanism cooling tower design with water-distribution basin and feed the nozzles/flower nozzles by gravity.

In a closed-loop cooling tower, the water from the condenser loop runs through tubes in the tower and is not exposed to the outside air. Water for cooling the tubes circulates only in the tower.

In the open tower, the cold-water collection basin provided at the base of the tower to gathers cool water after it has passed through the heat transfer medium. The cool water is pumped back to the condenser to complete the cooling-water loop.
While in the closed tower, the condenser water cools as it moves through the piping in the tower and returns to the chiller plant.

If you have any problem or query related to water distribution system please reach us at +91-9302.214.784. We assure you our best of services to correct the cooling tower distribution system.

L K Chatuvedi
CEO - Wetpoint Aqua Equipments (P) Ltd
Manufacturer of all kind of Industrial Cooling Towers
Phone: +91-9302.214.784
Email: ceo@wetpointcoolingtowers.com

Cooling Tower Rebuild Requirements

A decrease of 1.1°C in water temperature results in extra production per hour. The cost of rebuilding cooling tower can be more than paid because increased production creates extra product sale.

It’s a myth that every cooling tower can be rebuilt. Rebuilding a cooling tower does not ensure the return more cooler water or save power or money. Each cooling tower installation must be treated on individual basis i.e. thermal, hydraulic and aerodynamic calculations of existing conditions should be studied by a cooling tower service provider or engineer to see where improvement can be anticipated. Customers can also include their cooling tower testing requirement in the contract.

A cooling tower service provider or engineer can perform a thermal test before and after rebuilding cooling tower. The cooling tower service provider or engineer should provide a report mentioning reasons of the cooling tower's deficiency along with their solutions. In addition to capability percentage the report must include cooling tower specifications along with the estimated budget required to correct the deficiency.

Organizations can be conducted in-house thermal testing for a close estimate. However, a competent cooling tower operator can tell by production results if cooling tower cold water is adequate or not.  Allow a competent cooling tower engineer with approved instrumentation to handle it. Only a certified test will provide the capability percent at which the tower is operating, compared to the 100% for which it was purchased. 

Due to the added cost of new ba-sin, piping and wiring, rebuilding and retrofit should be considered. The expense of retrofitting and rebuilding a cooling tower to upgrade its capacity or capability has a rapid payback if the proper investigative engineering is performed. The points mentioned above are few and far between, but good care and attention can help to identify them. 

Wetpoint is here as helping hand to ensure reliable and effective operation.

Prahalad Rai
9669776202
RNB Infotech, Gwalior

Cooling Tower Repairing Projects

Repairing a Cooling tower is often complicated and full of surprises too. It starts with identifying the basic work that need to be done. During the identification of scope details discovered can be horrible enough then the work done. When these horrible issues arise, the every repair team must work together. To handle and resolve issues, the project team should includes owner, cooling tower design engineer, cooling tower project manager and skilled or non-skilled construction staff so that unnecessary costs can be avoided and well formed engineering solutions are provided within the time span.

It is a must for repairing team owner to make collaboration with consultants/suppliers to collect the detailed scope of work to repair the damaged cooling tower. Despite of everything, once the repair work begins on site, a common problem may occur i.e. the state of components that could not have been identified during planning stage due to certain reasons. 

Cooling tower owners must also be careful about the Vendor selection to complete the cooling tower repairing work. Owner must identify that if applied work via vendor has real engineering skills and resources or are they simply doing what they think by their own? 

We at Wetpoint get difference on that part. We have seen numerous cases and understands where cooling towers were modified without regard of structural engineering best practices. When this happens, the cooling tower compromised with the equipment that results decreased performance and low output. Some times the chance of a cooling tower shut down increased.

So don’t let this happen in your plant/factory. Call our Wetpoint cooling tower service team today and let us help you design and manage your cooling tower project.

Prahalad Rai
9669776202
RNB Infotech, Gwalior