DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A COOLING TOWER BASED

ON DIFFERENT PARAMETERS

Ovat, Friday Aje1 and Anyandi, Josephat Adie2

1, 2,
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Cross River University of Technology, Calabar-
Nigeria
1
fraijoe@yahoo.com and 2 anyandi@yahoo.com

Abstract
A model laboratory cooling tower was designed and produced using locally available
materials and was used in conjunction with a residential size water heater to simulate the
industrial process heat load. The aim of this research is to evaluate the performance of the
cooling tower produced locally in order to determine the influences of flow characteristics on
the efficiency of the cooling tower. Experiments were conducted to study how adjustment of
one or both of the parameters affect the amount of heat removed from the hot water by the
water heater. A daily record of dry and wet bulb temperatures in Uyo metropolis for one
complete year was obtained and the maximum wet and dry bulb temperatures of 27°C and
31°C respectively which represented the worst case scenario was used for the design of the
cooling tower. The tower had a resulting designed efficiency of 51.6%. The results were used
to plot a graph of cooling rate of the hot water, from a temperature of 82°C to 40°C in one
hour by the cooling tower with an approach of 14°C. The variation of water temperature with
the flow rate was a non-linear one, from 43°C to 67.5°C and from 67.5C to 82°C respectively.
It was inferred from this investigation that the rate of cooling of water is uniformly
proportional to the flow rate to an extent. Thus, variation of the cooling tower characteristics
affects the tower performance linearly and non-linearly. The actual efficiency of the cooling
tower was calculated and found to be 47.5% which is 4.1% lower than the designed
efficiency.
Keywords: Cooling tower; Uyo; Flow Characteristics; Performance; Influence.

1
1.0 Introduction
Cooling towers generally operate on the basic principle of removing heat from hot water by
evaporating a small portion of the water that is re-circulated through the unit. The heat that is
removed is called the latent heat of vaporization.
Water cooling systems control these temperatures by transferring heat from hot process fluids
into cooling water. As this happens, the cooling water itself gets hot and before it can be used
again, it must either be cooled or replaced by a fresh supply of cool water.

Cooling towers are designed and manufactured in different types, with numerous sizes
and models available in each type. Not all types are suitable for application to every heat load
configuration. However, understanding the various types, along with their advantages and
limitations, can be of vital importance to the prospective user (Morse, 1990).

Cooling is achieved as warm water trickles down the packing (fills) in small column and
encounters air flowing upwards in the opposite direction. The heat removed from the system is
transferred into the atmosphere through air-cooling of water stream to lower the temperature.
This type of cooling is termed “evaporative,” in that it allows a small portion of the water
being cooled to evaporate with a moving air stream. It provides significant cooling to the rest
of the water stream. The heat from the water stream transferred to the air stream raises the air
temperature and its relative humidity to 100% and this air is discharged into the atmosphere
(John, 2009 and Johnny, 2006).

The machines and processes of industry, as well as those devoted to human comfort and
their wellbeing generate tremendous amount of heat that must be continuously dissipated if
these machines and processes are to continue to operate efficiently. Although this heat is
usually transferred to a cool flowing volume of water, final rejection is always to the
atmosphere and, invariably, is accomplished by some form of heat exchanger. Many of these
terminal heat exchangers are not easily recognized as such because they are better known as
creeks, rivers, lakes etc.
2
 The natural process of evaporation makes them very effective heat transfer mediums,
although somewhat inefficient due to their limited surface area and their total dependence
upon random winds (CTUW, 2014).
Refineries, steel mills, petrochemical manufacturing plants, electric utilities, paper mills and
even the domestic generators all rely heavily on equipment or processes that require efficient
temperature control. This is in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics, which
states that operation of a power cycle requires that heat be rejected at the lower temperature of
the cycle (Bhatia, 1981).
The heat so rejected is dissipated and if not removed could eventually result to system
failure due to the metallurgical limit of the system’s materials.
The metallurgical limit has been defined as the critical temperature at which the most
highly stressed part of the system’s components can withstand. Thus, the efficiency of the
power cycle typically improves as the temperature at which the heat is extracted is lowered as
illustrated by Carnot cycle for a two-phase working fluid.

ηth = Th-T₁ (1)

Th
Where, ηth = efficiency of the system
Th = Absolute temperature of the high temperature heat source
T₁ = Absolute temperature of the low temperature heat reservoir or heat sink

The cooling tower is one such best ways of removing the waste (process) heat emitted and
consequently, improving the efficiency of the plant (Sutherland, 2017 and Arora, 2010).

A cooling tower removes waste (process) heat by evaporative cooling, that is, a small portion
of the water being cooled evaporates with a moving air stream to provide significant cooling
to the rest of the water stream.

Each 0.454kg of water that is evaporated, removes approximately 1.055kJ in the form of
latent heat. The amount of heat lost by the water depends on the temperature rise of the

3
 ambient air before it leaves the tower. This means that both the Dry Bulb Temperature (DBT)
and Wet Bulb Temperatures (WBT) of the air are important. When WBT equals DBT, this
condition corresponds to 100% Relative Humidity (RH), this implies that the air is fully
saturated (Bhatia, 1981).

When the air is fully saturated, it means that the air will no longer accept water, and the
lack of evaporation does not allow the wetted bulb to reject heat into the air by evaporation.
The higher the difference between DBT and WBT, the lower is the relative humidity, meaning
that the air is drier. The lower relative humidity indicates greater capacity of air to absorb or
hold water and shall result in efficient lowering of water temperatures. This implies that, a
tower cannot cool the hot process water to a temperature lower than the wet-bulb temperature
of the entering air.

The air temperature rises as it absorbs sensible heat from the water. This sensible heat transfer
occurs if the dry bulb temperature (DBT) of air is less than the DBT of water. This may
account for 20% of the cooling (WCTG, 2013 and CTTDM, 2014).

Components of a Cooling Tower

The average life of a cooling tower is estimated at approximately 20 years, and well
maintained towers often can operate well beyond that. Most towers are designed such that air
moving components and heat transfer media can be replaced when necessary, often resulting
in higher unit performance as technological advances occur in the industry. The key to
longevity is keeping the base structure of the tower usable, especially the cold water basin.
The important components of the cooling tower are;

i. Packing Materials
ii. Splash Fills Cooling Tower Fan
iii. Air Inlet Screens
iv. Louvre

4
 v. Drift Eliminators
vi. Ladders and Handrails

vii. Cooling Tower Bypasses

viii. Frame and casing
ix. Cooling Tower Cold Water Basin (Johnny, 2006)

Cooling Tower Hot Water Distribution System

It includes those parts of a tower beginning with the inlet connection, which distributes
the hot circulating water within the tower to the points where it contacts the air for effective
cooling. It includes headers, lateral branch arms, nozzles, distribution basins, and flow-
regulating devices. Nozzles are fabricated out of PVC, ABS, polypropylene and glass filled
nylon. Water enters through a removable wave suppressor splash box (ASHRAE, 2001 and
Gutkowski, 1996).

A cooling tower device has the limitation of the location it is being used based on the heat
load configuration and different meteorological conditions other than where it was designed
and manufactured. This work therefore seeks to investigate how this limitation – the
influences of the ambient characteristics has on cooling tower, thus optimizing the
performance by varying some of its operating parameters such as dry wet temperature and wet
bulb temperature among others.

2.0 Materials and Methods

2.1 Materials

The materials used for the construction of the laboratory cooling tower are
predominantly mild steel and scrapped aluminum (automobile air conditioning) condensers
used as the fill materials. The choice of these materials is based on low cost, availability,

5
recyclability and the mechanical strength or properties to enable them function properly
without failure.
The frame is a main structure, which carries the weight of the entire tower including the
fans, pump, baffles and the cool water reservoir. It is made rigid to also withstand the
vibration of the tower when in operation. A 3mm galvanized sheet of metal was also used to
form the casing or shell of the cooling tower. The casing serves as an enclosure, a boundary
within which the hot water falls through series of baffles arranged in steps of 50mm apart.

A boundary is required to be able to determine the accurate thermodynamic properties of

the conditioned water - the thermal and psychrometric properties of water and the interacting
air, hence thereby preventing the water from spilling into the environment thus maintaining
the same volume of water under investigation.

The choice of galvanized mild steel sheet is again important to facilitate heat removal
through conduction and convection to the atmosphere, thereby enhancing the efficient cooling
of the water.

The baffles are waste condensers of automobile air conditioning units made chiefly of
aluminum materials. These consist of fins, which provide large interacting surface area for the
cooling water and the up- flowing air. The scrapped condensers, which are manufactured in
different nominal sizes, were resized again to the required dimensions by measuring and
cutting off the excess edges to enable them fit into the baffle tray slots made on the frame of
the tower

Next, was the fabrication of the fan chutes, which serves two purposes- holding the fans
in place by providing a base for the mounting and directing the exhaust hot air away from the
tower. It was again fabricated out of the 3mm galvanized mild steel sheet by cutting two holes
of 200mm each on the rectangular sheet measuring 350x600mm using cold chisel, to locate
the Centre of the holes.

6
 2.2 Method

According to Mulyandasari (2011), once a tower characteristic has been established, the
required tower design and its size will be a function of:
i. Cooling range
ii. Approach to wet bulb temperature
iii. Mass flow rate of water
iv. Wet bulb temperature
v. Air velocity through tower or individual tower cell
vi. Tower height
Other design characteristics considered also were fan horsepower, pump horsepower,
Make-up water source, fogging abatement, and drift eliminator.

Each of the above mentioned factors has direct or indirect bearing with the wet and dry bulb
temperatures, hence to design a cooling tower, a wide range of these temperatures need to be
considered.

Design Conditions:

Cooling Tower Type Counter Flow Induced Draft

Water Temperature:

Leaving 27 °C

Entering 32 °C

Air Condition

Leaving 38°C DB, 98% RH

Entering 26°C DB, 65% RH

Make-up Water

7
 Temperature 27°C

Barometric Pressure 101.325kPa

The Designed Conditions are based on the following assumptions made:

i. The practical cooling range t2-t1°C is 5.6-16.7°C where, t2 is the air temperature and t1 is the
exit temperature of the water (Morse 1990).
ii. For cooling towers the rating conditions are 35°C entering water, 29.4 °C leaving water,
and 23.9 °C wet bulb of the outdoor air (Arora, 2010).
iii. In most cases, the temperature of the water leaving the tower will be 7 °C to 10°C above
wet bulb temperature of the entering air.

iv. That while the scope of this project is primarily concerned with the parametric design
based on the detail metrological data available for Uyo environment, from the Agro-
metrological service unit, Geography department, University of Uyo it takes into
consideration the already established standard properties and strength of the various materials
used in the fabrication of the Tower. Thus, the strength of mild steel and aluminum to
withstand both the working stress as a result of vibration and the thermal process (heat)
involved are adequate. Hence, the structural design of the tower attention in this work.

Calculation Procedure:

Amount of water to be handled by the cooling tower, mwcw

Mass of cold water, mcw = (mcw)makeup + (mcw)pump (2)

mcw= (2.96+10.78)kg/s (3)

mcw= 13.74kg/s

8
 Mass Balance Equation

Mass entering = Mass leaving

mcw +mw+maHR3 = mw +maHR4 (4)

mcw =ma (HR4-HR3)= ma(0.0297-0.0136)

mcw =0.0161 ma (5)

Substituting eq.9 to eq.10

0.016ma=0.43174ma - 2.642 (6)

2.642=0.43174ma - 0.016ma

ma =6.36kg/s (7)

Mass of Make-up water, mcw

mcw =0.016ma

mcw =0.016(6.36kg/s)=0.1023kg/s of water

Volume Flow Rate of Air Va

At 26°C and 65% RH, Psat=3.363kPa

Ps= RH(Psat)=0.65(3.363kPa)=2.18595kPa

PV=mRT

Va=maRaTa = (6.36kg/s)(0.2871kJ/kgK)(26+273)K
(Ps-Ps) (101.325-2.18595)kPa or kN/m³

Va=5.507 m³/s (8)

9
where: RH= relative humidity

Psat = saturation pressure at 26°C

Pᵧ= partial pressure of water vapour.

Volume Flow Rate of Air, ) through the Tower by Induced Draft:

Cross-sectional area of induced draft fan is found by allowing 3.0gpm/ft2 (Van, 2016)

t= 25+30 = 27.5°C
2

at 27.5°C

ρw =996.512kg/m3

Therefore,

Volume flow rate (Vw) = mw = 13.74kg/s (9)

ρw 996.12kg/m3
3

= 0.0138m

Cooling tower range, (C.T.R)

C.T.R. =t1-t2=5°C (10)

Cooling Tower Approach, (C.T.A)

At 26°C and 65% RH; twb=22.25°C

C.T.A. =t1-twb=25-22.255=2.75°C (11)

Cooling Tower Design Efficiency, (C.T.E)

10
From equations 15 and 16,

C.T.R =t1-t2×100%
t1-twb

30-25 ×100
30-22.25

C. T. R = 51.6% (17)

Testing of the Cooling Tower

Experiments were conducted to show how adjustment of one or more of the cooling
tower operating parameters (wet bulb and dry bulb temperatures) affects the amount of heat
removed from the water provided by the water heater. The water heater is used to provide the
industrial process load, which is supposed to be the excess heat removed from the power
plant.

Energy that enters the cooling tower is in the form of hot water. Other energy
contributions such as heat generated from friction of both air and water, energy losses from
pipes, etc. are assumed negligible and hence ignored.

Hot water was cooled from temperature T1w to a temperature of T2w. The cooling of the hot
water was in the form of forced convection by which air at ambient temperature, T 1a was
blown over the hot water and exits the cooling tower at some temperature T2a. (Figure 1)

The laboratory cooling tower allows for complete control of the speed of the fan used in
cooling the warm return water and the pump used to return the cooled water to the water
heater. Both the entry and exit temperatures of the air and water were recorded. Once these
data are obtained, an energy balance can be conducted on the system.

The information needed to reference the psychrometric chart is the dry bulb and wet bulb

11
temperatures of the inlet and outlet air. Both the input and output airflow temperatures are
measured with a sling psychrometer. The sling psychrometer is an instrument that has two
thermometers. The thermometer for measuring the wet bulb temperature has a wetted cotton
sleeve over the bulb end, while the dry bulb thermometer is a regular thermometer. Once the
wet and dry bulb temperatures of the inlet and outlet air have been measured, each can be
referenced on the psychrometric chart and the corresponding values of enthalpy is obtained.
Once the enthalpies for the inlet and outlet water and the air entry and exit conditions are
known, energy balance can be conducted on the system.

The water going into the cooling tower loses energy. The enthalpy of the water going
into the tower can be determined by using the enthalpy of saturated liquid water in a steam
table. The enthalpy of the water coming out of the tower can be determined in the same way.
The data in steam tables are usually not given for every temperature, so linear interpolation
must be performed to determine the enthalpy at the desired temperature. Then the enthalpy of
the water is multiplied by the mass flow rate. A basis of an operation of a time interval was
chosen to make the calculation easier. The change in enthalpy for the water is determined by
calculation using the measured values of the data earlier obtained.

A 44.5 litre volume of water at an ambient temperature of 26°C was heated to a

temperature of 82°C, at an atmospheric pressure of 101.32KPa barometer reading, using
domestic size water heater to simulate the process heat load as recorded.
The water was then passed through the tower with the same upper temperature of
82°C, as the entering temperature of the water, which was made to cool as it drops through the
series of baffles. A five-minute time interval was selected, while the flow rate varied for each
time interval. The experiment was repeated for thirteen consecutive time intervals and for each
time interval, the corresponding water out temperature was recorded.
The results of the experiments were plotted with the water out temperature (°C) on the y-axis
against time (minute) on the x-axis as indicated in Figure 2. The graph is a curve line, sloping
from left to right, indicating that cooling of the water was achieved with time from 82°C to
43°C.
12
 The slight undulating line, somewhat parallel to the time axis indicates the ambient
temperature line in Figure 2. The difference between the lowest water out temperature 43°C
and the ambient temperature line is the cooling tower “approach”, which is a significant factor
to determine the cooling tower efficiency.

= 1460.277
3070.326

= 0.475609756 × 100
= 47.56%

3.0 Results and Discussion

3.1 Results
The laboratory cooling tower was tested and run according to the established proceedures.
The result is as shown in Figures 1and 2
Entry water temperature = 82°C
Barometric reading = 101.32kPa
Volume of water =44.574×10-3m3
Entry air temperature = 29°C
The variation of water temperature and flow rate with operating time as shown in Figure 1.

13
 Figure 1.Variation of water out temperature (°C) versus time (min)

Figure 2.Variation of water flow rate versus temperature

The graph of water flow rate (m3/s) was also plotted against cooling water out temperature
(°C) as indicated in Figure 2. The resulting graph exhibits a curve at the beginning to a point
and linearity shows the correlation between the rate of cooling of water and its flow rate.

Discussion
The efficiency of the cooling tower was examined during the laboratory test experiment
session. It was determined to be 47.5% efficient. This efficiency is calculated by determining
the range and the approach of the system. The range is the difference between the inlet and
outlet temperature of the water and the approach is the difference between the cooled water
14
temperature exiting the tower and the wet bulb temperature. From the review of literature, the
lower the wet bulb temperature the better the efficiency of the tower will be (Dickson, 2013;
Gutkowsky, 1996 and CTCEE2012). A low wet bulb temperature will mean that the air is
very dry, thus a higher amount of water can be evaporated. This ideal scenario of a very dry
air is very difficult to find in Uyo where the humidity is always very high; hindering the
efficiency of these types of systems. One way to counter this effect would be to incorporate an
additional unit that would take the moisture of the incoming air by installing a dehumidifying
unit to pre-treat the air that enters the cooling tower. However, this may increase operational
costs.
Another important factor to mention is the design of the system to have the fans on top of the
tower. The fan produces a low entering velocity and a high air exiting velocity. This is very
desirable to diminish the amount of high humidity air that could recirculate to the air inlet.
From the many different experiments that were conducted initially before the actual ones,
in which steady state operation was not reached. One set of these experiments was run with a
constant pump speed, and the fan speed was stepped up. The data was plotted to show that the
experiment was indeterminate and an attempt to calculate the energy balance was
inconclusive, indicating that a steady state must be attained before readings should be taken.
The basis of an operation of 5 minute was chosen to make the calculation easier. The
change in enthalpy for the water is determined by the change in energy of the air. However,
the determination of the enthalpy of air is more complicated than the determination of the
enthalpy values of the water stream. An important tool that was used for this is the
psychrometric chart. On the psychrometric chart, the enthalpy of the air stream can be
determined by using the wet bulb and the dry bulb temperature of the air stream. The enthalpy
is given with the units of kilojoules per kilogram (kJ/kg) of dry air. By using the output
stream, the volumetric flow per mass flow of dry air can be determined. This is a conversion
factor that is used to convert volumetric flow of air to kilogram of dry air.

Having known the mass flow rate of the dry air, the enthalpy values of the entry and exit
streams were determined. The change in enthalpy of the water should have a negative value,

15
and the change in enthalpy of the air should have a positive value. Theoretically, when the two
values are added together, the result should be zero, as shown by the first law of
thermodynamics (Wang 2001; Rosaler, 1995 and ASHRAE, 2001).

The relationship between the variables as shown by the data obtained during the
experiments recorded in Table1were represented in graphical form, as depicted in Figures 1
and 2 respectively.

Figure 1 is a graph of variation of the water out temperature plotted on the vertical axis
against time intervals of five (5) minutes in succession on the horizontal axis. The graph is
seen to slope from the left downward to the right indicating that the gradient is negative. This
is in agreement with Thermodynamics principles, that some amount of heat energy has been
lost from the water to the environment (Black, 1996). The straight line is the water at
ambientbtemperature which was maintained at 27 °C.

Figure 2 is another graph of variation of water flow rate plotted on the vertical axis
against the temperature of the water on the horizontal axis, at constant fan speed.

It was established from the curve of the graph that the water flow rate increases or decreases
proportionally with the temperature of the water at some point and directly so at another point,
given that the fan speed is kept constant.

Conclusion
Cooling towers generally are devices used to remove heat from various sources like machinery
or heated processes. Industrial applications of cooling towers involve the removal of heat
absorbed in circulating water system used in plants such as power plants, petroleum refineries,
petrochemical plants, natural gas processing plants, semi-conducting plants and other
manufacturing systems and processes. There are different types of cooling towers and also of
different sizes. In the present work the influence of ambient characteristics on cooling tower
performance was investigated using a cooling tower that was produced using locally made
materials. This is considered on the basis of the environmental parameters of the operational

16
location. The designed efficiency of the cooling tower was calculated to be 51.6%. The
operational efficiency of the cooling tower was found to be 47.5%. The designed and actual
efficiencies of the cooling tower showed some disparities. This disparity does not affect the
overall efficiency of the system considering the design parameters and the operational location
of the cooling tower.
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