mene Effective Thermal Design Of Cooling Towers Asstep-by-step approach to cooling-tower design, with an example calcul: Jonny Goyal ation to make itclear [irLiquide Engineering and Construction, Lurg!India Jariout misconceptions arise when it comes to the thermal Aesign of cooling towers. Some times related parameters, such as vange, approach, effectiveness, lig ud-to-gas ratio (L/G), wot-bulb tem. perature, coling water temperature, relative humidity, number of transfer wunits (NTU) and other terme create ‘confusion for the designer in effec ‘Gvely sing, selecting and evaluating 4 particular cooling tower. This leads to inadequate design ‘The objective of this article is to regent a stepwise understanding of hhow to caleulate the NTU for a coo: ing tower, and thus to understand the basis of thermal design of counter: ow cooling tower for optimising cost and performance. Definitions First, let's look at some of the basie terms and briefly describe their signi ‘cance and roe in cooling tower design and performance, Dry-bulb temperature. Dry-bulb temperature (gy) — usually referred to as the air temperature — is the property of air that is most commonly ‘used. When people refer to the tem: perature of the air, they are normally referring to its dry-bulb temperature. "The dy-bulb temperature it an in dicator of heat content and it shown along the bottom axis of « peychomet Fie chart The vertial lines extending ‘upward from this axie are constant temperature lines. Wet-bulb temperature. Wet-balb temperature (fg) isthe reading when, the hulb of thermometer ie covered with a wet cloth, and the instrument is whirled around in a sling. The vet bulb temperature is the lowest tems perature that can be reached by evap bration of water only. Relative humidity (RH). RH is the ratio of the partial pressure of ‘water vapor in air over the satura tion vapor pressure at a given tem perature. When the relative humid. ity is 100%, the air is saturated and therefore, water will not evaporate farther, Therefore, when the RIT is 100% the wet-bulb temperature is the same as the dry-bulb tempera ture, because the water cannot evap- orate any more. Range. The rango ie the difference in ‘temperature of inlet hot water () and outlet cold water (ty ~ - high toolingawer range means that the Cooling tower has been able to reduce the water temperature effectively Approach. The approach is the dit: ference in temperature of outlet cold water and ambient wet-bulb tempera: tute, ¢;~ fy. The lower the approach the better the cooling toser perfor mance, Although both range and ap- proach should be monitored, the ap proach is a better indicator of cooling tower performance Cooling tower capability. The capa- bility of the cooling tower is @ measure af how close the tower can bring the Ihot eater temperature to the wet Dull temperature of the entering air A larger cooling tower (that is, more air or more fil) will produce a eloser fpproach (colder outlet water) for a ‘ven heat load, flowrate and entering ‘ir condition. The lower the wetbulb NOMENCLATURE fp Hot water emperatue, °C fh Gold water terporahir, °C fap Wetbulb emperture, °C 1 Drpbulb temperate, °C 1g Dew point emperatire, °C hy Enthalpy of moist ir kl/kg fy Enthopy of ine i kg hp Enhelpy of x ir i/hg fr Entholay off, keg F Hloweate,m2/h Mas lwrate of liquid, /h Mass owrate of ga, l/h @ Heat oad, kel/h Z__Alitade oboe so level, Pp Beromercpresre, kPa Puy Seaton presure of water oper Pa Pe Parl renin of water vp Speci volume, m/kg Humid ratio, kg water/kg ir 1, Humidity rai saturation a, kg water mais ot Relative humidity (RH), © Consont elated 1 coslng ower eign im ‘Slope tower cheers carve temperature, which indicates either cool ait, [ow humidity or a combina tion of the two, the lower the cooling tower can cool the water: Capability tests are conducted per the ATC-103, Code of the Cooling Tower Institute (CTI; Houston; www org) ‘The thermal performance of the cooling tower is thus affected by the entering wet-bulb temperature, The entering air dry-bulb temperature has an insignificant effect on ther smal performance Effectiveness. A cooling tower's of fectiveness ir quantified by the ratio af the actual range to the ideal range, that ia the diflerence between cooling water inlet temperature and ambient Wwet-bulb temperature. It is defined in terms of percentage.= > A enthalpy etal. leg sseseessSSRREEE FIGURE 1, The Meri! equation ede rived by considering a fling water dro Tet surrounded by saturated ait Effectiveness Range a 100% Range Approach Liquid-to-gas ratio (LiG). The UG ratio of a cooling tower isthe ratio of te liquid (water) mass flowrate (L) 10 ae (ait) mass flowrate (G). Coo: ing towere have certain design val uues, but seasonal variations require adjustment and tuning of water and air flowrates to got the best cooling tower effectiveness, Number of transfer units (NTU). ‘Also. called the tower coefficient, the NTU ig « numerical value th results from theoretical calcula tions based on a set of performance characteristics. The value of NTU is algo representative of the degree of difficulty for the cooling process. ‘The NTU corresponding to a set of hypothetical conditions is called the required coefficient and is an evalu ation of the problem. The same cal: ulations applied to a set of test conditions is. called the available coefficient of the tower involved. The available coefficient is not a con: tant but varies with operating con ditions, The operating characteristic of a cooling tower is developed from an empirical correlation that shows hhow the available coefficient variee with operating conditions. Cooling capacity. The cooling ca pacity of a tower isthe heat rejected [kealth or TR (refrigeration tons, 1 ‘TR = 12,000 Btw = 3,025.9 keal and is determined by the product of mast flowrate of water, times the specific heat times the temperature ilference FIGURE 2, Tie Sus temperature ‘Theory —the Merkel equation In a cooling tower operating in coun: ter current flow, there are ieo basic principles involved for removing heat by the cooling water: Lsensible heat transfer due to a di ference in temperature levels 2llatent heat equivalent of the mass transfer resulting from the evapo ration of «portion of the circulating ‘Merkel developed the basie equation based on the above principles. The ‘Merkel model is univereally accepted for designing and rating of counter. flow cooling tovterk The movel is based fon a drop of water falling through an. Upstream flow of unsaturated air at fa wet-bulb temperature of fy with enthalpy hy (Bigure 1), in a counter- flow cooling tower. The drop of water in assumed to be surrounded by afm of saturated air atthe water tempera ture WD with saturation enthalpy hy ‘As the drop travele downward, heat nd mace transfer takes place from the interface air film to the upstream sir, thereby cooling the water from hot temperature to a cold temperature ‘The main assumptions of Merkel theory are the following: 1 The saturated air film is at the tem- perature of the bulk water. 2.The saturated air film offers no re sistance to heat transfer, 3.The vapor content of the air it pro portional to the partial pressure of the water vapor. A.The heat transforred from the air to the film by convection is proportional tothe heat transferred from the fila to the ambient air by evaporation 5.The specific heat o! vapor mixture and porization are constant. 6.The loss of water by evaporation is neglected ‘7.The force driving heat transfer is the dlfferential enthalpy between, the saturated and bulk ai. This cooling process can best be ex- plained on a psychometric chart, Which plots enthalpy versus tem- perature. The process is illustrated he so-called driving-foree diagram shown in Figure 2. Te ai film is rep- resented by the water operating line on the saturation curve, The main air 12 veprezented by the air operating Tine, the elope of which isthe ratio of liquid (water) to air (L/G). The eool- Ing characterstio, a degree of difi- culty to cooling ie represented by the Merkel equation: mera let Fy = ® KaV IL Where K = overall enthalpy transfer coef cient, Ih. a= Surface area per unit tower vol- ame, 7/8 V = Biectve tower volume, A? L =Weter mass flowrate hv Bquation 2 basically says that at any point in the tower, heat and water ‘Vapor are transferred into the air due (approximately) to the difference inees cose the enthalpy of the air at the surface of the water and the main stream of the air Thus, the driving foee at any point is the vertical distance between the two operating lines. And therefore, the performance demended from the cooling tower is the inverse of this Giference, The solution of the Merkel ‘equation can be represented by the performance demand diagram shown in Figure 3. The KaV/L value is equal tothe area under the curve, and rep resents the sum of NTUs defined for & cooling tower range, ‘An increase in the entering fp roves the air operating line towards the right and upward to establish ‘equilibrium, Both the cold water tem perature (CWT) and hot water tem: perature (HW) increases, while the approach decreases. The curvature of the saturation line is such that the approach decreases al a progressively slower vate as the fo increases, An increase in the heat load increasee the cooling rangee and increases the length of the air operating line. To maintain equilibrium, the line shifts tothe right increasing the HWT, CWT, and approach. The increas causes the hot water temperature to increase considerably faster than does the cold water temperature. In both these cates, the KaV/L should remain constant. However, a change in L/G will change the KaVZ value, Cooling tower design (On the basis ofthe above discussion, it's clear that there are five param: ‘ters that, in combination, dictate and define the performance of a cooling ‘ower, namely 1-Hot water temperature, HVT. 2.Cold water temperature, CWT 3. Wet bulb tomperature, fj “4. Water mass flowrate, 5.Air mass fowrate, G ‘The first four parameters are deter mined by the usr of the cooling tower. It is the fith quantity, G, that i ae lected ly the designer of the cooling tower, Once these five quantities are available, the tower characteristic (KaV/L), can be calculated through the Merkel equation, "The fret step in designing a cooling tower is the generation of a demand curve, In this curve, the KaV/L val 2, é Tern dove * aoe oP ap = 3 > ro % Temperaure,"C FIGURE 5. Solving the Merkel equation (Equation 2) ie weualy dane graphical, ‘where the intogral sequal fo the area under the curve " I A . ue FIGURE 4, The intereection of the tower charatelai curve and the d Curve glves the design L1G ral ‘ues are plotted against varying L/G | mance curve. The L/@ is the most im- vatios. The next step is to superim- | portant factor in designing the cooling pose fil-characteristic curves and | tower and related to the construction demand curves, The Cooling Technl- | and operating cost of cooling tower ogy Institute has tosted a variety of | Finally we can summarize the im- fl configurations and generated fill | portance of the L/G ratio with the fol- characteristic curves for each type; | lowing points (CTY Teeanieal Paper TP88_05 ean be | Abigh L/G ratio means referred to in this regard * More water to less air Cooling tower design ie basic ‘Air i more saturated — driving iterative process, The factors that ef | force is reduced fect the selection of design L/G and | + More residence time of water needed ‘consequently the fillheightare:calldi- | + Less cooling in given time ‘mensions, water loading, air velocities | + Increase in required fan power scroza various cooling tower sections | + Decreaze in height of tower and pressure drops, and fan selection, | + Low evaporation loss (under same ‘The classical method of thermal rat- | water flowrate) ing of cooling towers isto eatimate the ratio ofliquid to gas fret and then find | An example makes it clear ‘the proper tower volume by the means | As an example let us design a cooling oftrial and error using the tower perfor. | towor with the fllowing data