What is the cooling tower? < HOME 

What is the cooling tower?

 

 
   
 


cooling tower is a heat rejection device, which extracts waste heat to the atmosphere through the cooling of a water stream to a lower temperature. Common applications for cooling towers are providing cooled water for air-conditioning, manufacturing and electric power generation.

The generic term cooling tower is used to describe both direct (open circuit) and indirect (closed circuit) heat rejection equipment. A open-circuit cooling tower is an enclosed structure with internal means to distribute the warm water fed to it over a labyrinth like packing or fill. The fill may consist of multiple and vertical wetted surfaces upon which a thin film of water spreads. An closed circuit cooling tower involves no direct contact of the air and the fluid, usually water or a glycol mixture, being cooled.

Cooling towers are also characterized by the means which air is moved. In a counter-flow cooling tower air travels upward through the fill or tube bundles, opposite to the downward motion of the water. In a cross-flow cooling tower air moves horizontally through the fill or tube bundles as the water moves downward.

The below tables illustrates the types of cooling tower by the various methods. The classifications of cooling tower could be defined by presence of air moving device, by method of contacting air and water, by direction of contacting air and water, or by location of installing air moving device.