Berg Fiberglass Cooling Tower Standard Features

Berg Fiberglass cooling tower fan assemblies Model 9624 and higher are shipped separately to reduce freight costs

Industrial Cooling Towers

Industrial cooling towers are evaporative coolers used for cooling water or other working medium to near the ambient wet-bulb air temperature. Cooling towers use evaporation of water to reject heat from processes such as cooling the circulating water used in oil refineries, chemical plants, power plants and building cooling.

An HVAC cooling tower is a subcategory rejecting heat from a chiller. Water-cooled chillers are normally more energy efficient than air-cooled chillers due to heat rejection to tower water at near wet-bulb temperatures. Air-cooled chillers must reject heat to the dry-bulb temperature, and thus have a lower average reverse-Carnot cycle effectiveness. Large office buildings, hospitals, schools typically use one or more cooling towers as part of their air conditioning systems. Generally, industrial cooling towers are much larger than HVAC towers.

HVAC use of a cooling tower pairs the cooling tower with a water-cooled chiller or water-cooled condenser. A ton of air-conditioning is the rejection of 12,000 Btu/hour (12,661 kJ/hour). The equivalent ton on the cooling tower side actually rejects about 15,000 Btu/hour (15,826 kJ/hour) due to the heat-equivalent of the energy needed to drive the chiller’s compressor. This equivalent ton is defined as the heat rejection in cooling 3 U.S. gallons/minute (1,500 pound/hour) of water 10°F, which amounts to 15,000 Btu/hour, or a chiller coefficient-of-performance (COP) of 4.0. This COP is equivalent to an energy efficiency ratio (EER) of 13.65.

Industrial cooling towers can be used to reject heat from various sources such as machinery or heated process material. The primary use of large, industrial cooling towers is to remove the heat absorbed in the circulating cooling water systems used in power plants, petroleum refineries, petrochemical plants, natural gas processing plants, food processing plants, semi-conductor plants, and other industrial facilities.

Wet cooling towers or simply cooling towers operate on the principle of evaporation. Dry coolers operate by heat transmission through a surface that divides the working fluid from ambient air. They thus rely mainly on convection heat transfer to reject heat from the working fluid, rather than evaporation.

Fluid coolers are hybrids that pass the working fluid through a tube bundle, upon which clean water is sprayed and a fan-induced draft applied. The resulting heat transfer performance is much closer to that of a wet cooling tower, with the advantage provided by a dry cooler of protecting the the working fluid from environmental exposure.

To achieve better performance (more cooling), a media called fill is used to increase the surface area between the air and water flows. Splash fill consists of material placed to interrupt the water flow causing splashing. Film fill is composed of thin sheets of material upon which the water flows. Both methods create increased surface area.

In a wet cooling tower, the warm water can be cooled to a temperature lower than the ambient air dry-bulb temperature, if the air is relatively dry. (see: dew point and psychrometrics). As air is drawn past a flow of water, the two flows attempt to equalize. The air, if not saturated, absorbs additional water vapor, leaving less heat in the remaining water flow.

Tower Stand No Options

Tower Stand with Caged Ladder and Single Walkway Tower Stand with Caged Ladder and L Walkway

Tower Stand with Caged Ladder and U-Shaped Walkway

Tower Stand with Caged Ladder and 4 Sided Walkway