SUMMARY

The processes of cooling water are among the oldest known. Usually, water is cooled
by exposing its surface to air. These processes all involve the exposure of water surface to air
in varying degrees. The heat-transfer process involves latent heat transfer owing to vaporization
of a small portion of the water and sensible heat transfer owing to the difference in temperature
of water and air. In this experiment, we have to study of the effect of air velocity on wet bulb
approach and pressure drop through the packing. The experiment was conducted with four
different sets of orifice pressure drop values which are 100%, 75%, 50%and 25%. Based on
the result, the value of nominal velocity for 25% and 100% air flow are 0.01230 and 0.02870
respectively. The Figure 1 shows as the nominal air velocity increased, the packing pressure
drop also increased. The amount of air flow that enter the blower is indicated by adjusting
manually the opening of glass or shield of the blower need to change as upgrading it
automatically of the opening of glass or shield as to reduce the amount of the risks towards the
students and get the accurate results when the air flow is following the percentage that it should
be. Still, the objective of this experiment is succeeded.

1
INTRODUCTION

Cooling towers are used in a variety of applications; from the tall towers at nuclear
power plants to small cooling boxes used by neighbourhood dry cleaners. The most common
use is in large building central cooling systems, but also used for refrigeration, cold storage
facilities, dry cleaning, medical equipment, manufacturing and industry. Cooling towers are
generally the most efficient means to remove large amounts of heat from air and equipment.
Unfortunately, cooling towers were using a large amounts of water when properly maintained,
and can waste greater amounts of water when it does not maintained properly through wasteful
practices, inefficient equipment and leaks.

Cooling systems transfer heat from one source to another, often using water. In a
cooling system with a cooling tower, cool water is pumped away from the cooling tower and
it’s circulated through hot equipment. The cool water absorbs heat from the equipment and
becomes warmer. The warmed water then returns back to the cooling tower. In the cooling
tower the warmed water is sprayed downward, and air is blown upward with a fan. As the
warm water droplets contact the air, some of the water droplets evaporate, and the air absorbs
the heat released from this evaporation, thereby lowering the temperature of the remaining
water. This cooling effect of the remaining water is called the latent heat of evaporation.
During this process, some water is lost to the air from evaporation and some water is lost by
the misting effect which is called as drift into the air.

The fundamental principal employed in accomplishing this removal of heat is the

evaporation of water. How this evaporation is accomplished varies among differing types of
cooling towers but nearly all towers rely upon the atomization of the water over sprinkler heads,
allowing the water to “rain” over fills which are a honeycomb-like structure that increases the
surface area of the water, and then pulling air across the surface of the water through the use
of fans [Price, D 2016]. Depending upon the outside air temperature and the outdoor relative
humidity, the temperature at which water can be theoretically cooled can be determined. This
is known as the wet-bulb temperature. Unless it is raining, this temperature is always cooler
than the outdoor temperature which is dry bulb.

2
THEORY

Cooling tower works basically on the principle of evaporation. In this process the
sensible heat of hot water is converted to latent heat of vaporisation. Thus reducing the
temperature of the exposed surface area of water to the air. More is the surface area of water
exposes to air greater is the cooling, thus requires lesser height of construction of cooling tower.
This is why water is generally sprinkled into the cooling tower. To create more turbulence
sometimes cooling towers have packings. However, in case of closed circuit drying, the water
is air-cooled without immediate contact.

In this experiment, there are a few calculation which is air mass flowrate, air volumetric
flowrate, and normal air velocity.

Where;

= mass flowrate (kg/s)

h =Orifice differential in mm H2O

= Specific volume of air (m3/kg)

Where,

V = Velocity (m/s)

A = Area (m2)

3
DATA AND RESULTS

Table A

Description Unit Air Flow

100% 75% 50% 25%
Packing density m-1 110 110 110 110
Air inlet dry bulb T1 ºC 21.8 21.8 21.9 21.9
Air inlet wet bulb T2 ºC 23.8 26.9 26.4 24.5
Air outlet dry bulb T3 ºC 30.6 29.2 28.9 28.7
Air outlet wet bulb T4 ºC 37.9 35.0 33.9 33.4
Water inlet temperature T5 ºC 26.3 25.5 25.5 26.9
Water outlet temperature T6 ºC 28.3 27.1 26.8 28.1
Orifice differential DP1 Pa 83.5 66.0 41.5 19.8
Water flow rate FT1 LPM 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0
Heater power P1 Watt 1000 1000 1000 1000
Pressure drop across packing Pa 33.52 15.99 12.75 12.26
DP2

Table B

Description Air flow

100% 75% 50% 25%
Nominal velocity of air (m/s) 0.02870 0.02244 0.01780 0.01230
Approach to wet bulb (K) 4.33 0.2 0.4 3.6
Pressure (mmH2O) 3.42 1.63 1.30 1.25

4
 Wet Bulb and pressure drop across packing vs nominal air
velocity
5

4.5
0.0287, 4.33
4
0.0123, 3.6 0.0287, 3.681
3.5
Nominal air velocity

Approach to wet bulb

3
(K)
2.5
Pressure drop across
2
packing (mmH2O)
0.02244, 1.723
1.5 0.0178, 1.407
1 0.0123, 1.111
0.5
0.0178, 0.4 0.02244, 0.2
0
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025 0.03 0.035
Wet Bulb and Pressure drop

Figure 1: wet bulb and pressure drop across packing vs nominal air velocity

5
ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

This cooling tower was carried out to operate the cooling tower and to determine the
effect of air velocity on wet bulb approach and pressure drop through the packing.

Generally, cooling tower is a heat rejection device that extracts waste/undesired heat
to the atmosphere by cooling of a stream of water to a lower temperature. This heat rejection
is also known as ‘evaporative’ in which it allows a little portion of the water being cooled to
evaporate into a moving air stream which provide significant cooling to the remaining in the
water stream. The heat that was released by the water stream transferred to the air stream,
thus raising the air’s temperature and its relative humidity to 100% which later discharged
into the atmosphere (Cooling Tower Institute, 2012). In designing a cooling tower for a
chemical plant, several parameters should be considered, in which each will affect the size,
capacity and efficiency of a cooling tower. For a better understanding, the effect is simplified
in terms of parameters such as heat load, range, approach and wet-bulb temperature. If one
parameter is changed while the rest are held constant, this will indeed affect the tower size
and efficiency (Marley, 2013).
As the nominal air velocity increased, the packing pressure drop also increased. This
is caused by, as the fan or blower increase in speed, there will be more pressure drop occurs
to eliminate the temperature from hot water to cool water. From the graph, the wet bulb
approach and packing pressure drop is plotted in the same graph to show that at the highest
nominal velocity of air, the wet bulb approach and packing pressure drop will cross each
other. This crossing point shows the limit of the wet bulb approach and packing pressure drop
at the highest nominal air velocity or at the 100% air flow.
The cooling tower is set to 2.0 LPM water flow rate and cooling load of 1kW. After the
system stabilized for about 5 minutes, all the data was recorded and filled in the table provide.
Based on Table A, all the result of packing density, temperature T1 to T6, orifice differential
(DP1), water flow rate (FT1), heater power(Q1) and also the pressure drop across packing
(DP2) at the various of the air flow which is 100%, 75%, 50% and 25% were determined. From
table B, the value of nominal velocity for 100%, 75%, 50% and 25% air flow are 0.02870,
0.02244, 0.01780 and 0.01230. The value of nominal velocity of air decrease as the air flow
decrease. Referring to the Figure 1, the wet bulb approach from 4.33K then sudden decrease to
0.2K and slowly increasing 0.3 to 3.66 respectively. The trend of the packing pressure drop
against nominal velocity is vice versa to the wet bulb approach against nominal velocity based
on Figure 1 as the value are 3.42 mmH2O, 1.63 mmH2O, 1.30 mmH2O and 1.25 mmH2O. As

6
the results showed by the Figure 1, the increasing value of pressure drop as the nominal air
velocity increase.

The result of cooling tower experiment is sensitive to temperature. Therefore, it is

recommended to conduct this experiment in an insulated place so that there is no excessive
heat lost to the surrounding atmosphere. The blower speed can only be adjusted by percentage
and cannot determine the amount of air flow through the cooling tower. Hence, it is
recommended to digitalize scalar to adjust the flow rate air. Next, the amount of air flow that
enter the blower is indicated by adjusting manually the opening of glass or shield of the blower.
It is dangerous for students to do that since students can accidently put their fingers in the
blower. As a result, the temperature from T1 to T6 might be not accurate as the air flow is not
following the percentage it should be. Though, the objective of this experiment is achieved.

7
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

The objective of this experiment is to investigate the effect of air velocity on wet bulb
approach and pressure drop through the packing. As the nominal air velocity increased, the
packing pressure drop also increased. From table 2, the value of nominal velocity for 25% and
100% air flow are 0.01230 and 0.02870 respectively. The value of nominal velocity of air
decrease as the air flow decrease. From Figure 1, the wet bulb approach from 4.33K then
sudden decrease to 0.2K and slowly increasing 0.3 to 3.66 respectively. The trend of the
packing pressure drop against nominal velocity is vice versa to the wet bulb approach against
nominal velocity based on Figure 1 as the value are 3.42 mmH2O, 1.63 mmH2O, 1.30 mmH2O
and 1.25 mmH2O. The Figure 1 shows the increasing value of pressure drop as the nominal air
velocity increase.

There are a few recommendations for this experiment which are conduct this
experiment in an insulated place so that there is no excessive heat lost to the surrounding
atmosphere as the result of cooling tower experiment is sensitive to temperature. Next, it is
recommended to digitalize scalar to adjust the flow rate air as the blower speed can only be
adjusted by percentage and cannot determine the amount of air flow through the cooling tower.
Furthermore, the machine need to be upgraded to automatically of the opening of glass or shield
as to reduce the amount of the risks towards the students and get the accurate results when the
air flow is following the percentage that it should be. Still, the objective of this experiment is
succeeded.

8
REFERENCES

 David Price, 2016. What are the principles of cooling tower? [Online]
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-principles-of-cooling-tower. Accessed on: 11
March 2018.
 Administrator, 2018. Introduction to Cooling Towers. [Online]
http://www.allianceforwaterefficiency.org/cooling_tower_intro.aspx. Accessed on: 11
March 2018.

9
APPENDIX

Air flowrate 100%

Approach to wet bulb

= T6 – T2

= 301.28K – 296.95K

= 4.33 K

Air outlet dry bulb = 30.6°C

= 303.75K

Air outlet wet bulb = 37.9°C

= 311.05K

Air mass flow rate, m (kg/s)

h = orifice differential

= 83.5 Pa ÷ 9.81

= 8.512 mmH2O

v = specific volume of air

0.88m3/kg

8.512 𝑚𝑚𝐻2𝑂
m = 0.0137 √ 𝑚3
0.88
𝑘𝑔

= 0.04261 kg/s

Air volumetric flowrate

Ṽ = ṁv

= 0.04261 kg/s X 0.88m3/kg

= 0.03750

Nominal air velocity

10
 𝑉̇
𝑣=
𝐴
A : packing area (m2)

m2
A = 110 m3 (0.15m × 0.15m × 0.6m)

= 1.485 m2
𝑚3
0.04261
𝑠
𝑣= 1.485m2

= 0.02870 m/s

Pressure

Pascal convert to mmH2O

= 33.55 Pa ÷ 9.81

= 3.42 mmH2O

11