What is a cooling tower?
A cooling tower is a device for transferring waste heat from a power plant to the atmosphere. Once through cooling is only available near large bodies of water. Once through cooling is sometimes objectionable for environmental reasons because returning warm water to a body of water can have adverse effects on marine life.
Every type of air conditioning or refrigeration process is a means of moving heat from where it is not wanted to medium where it can be rejected. The radiator of a car is a dry, finned-tube heat exchanger that is used to reject engine heat to the outdoor air efficiently. A cooling tower is essentially a wet heat exchanger used to reject heat from a chiller or excess heat from a HRSG. The water spray over tube banks in a cooling tower is more efficient at rejecting heat than a dry heat exchanger. It allows lower operating pressures in the chiller and greater efficiencies.
A cooling tower is an installation that retreats heat from water by evaporation or conduction. The industries use cooling water in various processes. As a result, there are also various types of cooling towers. There are cooling towers that create process water that can only be used once, before it is discharged. There are also cooling towers that create water that can be reintoduced in the production process. When water is reused, it is pumped through the installation into the cooling tower. After the water is cooled, it is reintroduced into the production process. Water that needs to be cooled usually has a temperature of between 40 and 60C. The water is pumped to the top of the cooling tower and will than flow down through plastic or wooden shells. This causes drop formation. While flowing down, the water emits heat which mixes with the above air flow, causing it to cool down 10 to 20 ˚C. Part of the water evaporates, causing it to emit more heat. Water vapor can sometimes be observ
