Cooling tower & Condenser system Operational

Philosophy & efficiency

Presenter:

Muhammad
Hassan Khan
 Contents
• Introduction.
• Rankine cycle.
• Types of cooling towers.
• Cooling tower parameters.
• Losses in a cooling tower.
• Dosing.
• Improvement suggestions for CT.
• Types of Condensers.
• Condenser parameters.
• Comparison.
• Improvement suggestions for CT.
 Introduction

• Cooling tower:
• A cooling tower is a specialized heat exchanger in which air and
water are brought into direct contact with each other in order to
reduce the water's temperature.

• Condenser:
• A condenser is a piece of industrial equipment that acts as a heat
exchanger to convert a vapor to a liquid. It does this by reducing
the vapor's temperature via thermodynamic contact with an external
fluid of lower temperature. Often, the gas to be treated is steam and
the external fluid is water.
 Rankine Cycle

Process 1-2: Isentropic compression

in a pump. Here the working fluid is
pumped from low to high pressure.

Process 2-3: Constant pressure

heat addition in the boiler.

Process 3-4: Isentropic expansion in

a turbine.

Process 4-1: Constant pressure

heat rejection in a condenser.
 Rankine-Cycle

• At our plant condenser vacuum pressure is maintained at -0.93 bar.

 Cooling Towers

• Cooling towers are of following types:

• Natural draft cooling towers
• Forced draft cooling towers
• Induced draft cooling towers

Natural draft CT Forced draft CT Induced draft CT

 Cooling Tower

• Types of cooling tower on basis of flow:

• Counter-flow cooling towers
• Cross-flow cooling towers
 Cooling tower Parameters

• Range
• Approach
• Efficiency
• Cycle of concentration COC
• Capacity of a cooling tower
• Losses of a cooling tower
• Our cooling tower parameters
 Efficiency of Cooling tower

Range is the temperature difference

between the inlet hot cooling water
temperature and outlet cold cooling
water temperature.

Range = CW inlet temp – CW outlet

temp

Range= Ti-To
Where:
Ti = Temperature of hot water at
inlet of cooling tower
To= Temperature of cold water at
outlet of cooling tower

High range = Good performance

 Efficiency of Cooling tower

Approach is the temperature

difference between outlet cold cooling
water temperature and ambient air wet
bulb temperature.

Approach = CW outlet temp –

Ambient air wet bulb temperature

Approach= To-Twb
where:
To= Temperature of cold water at
outlet of cooling tower
Twb= Wet bulb temperature of Air

Low Approach = Good performance

 Efficiency of Cooling tower

Effectiveness is the ratio of range

over sum of range and effectiveness

Effectiveness = Range / ( range +

approach)

= 60%

High Effectiveness = Good

performance
 Cycle of Concentration

CYCLES OF CONCENTRATION is the number of times the concentration

of total dissolved solids (TDS) in cooling tower water is multiplied relative to
the TDS in the makeup water.
Allowable COC at our plant is 3.5 to 5.5 cycles.

• Cycles of concentration (COC) = Silica in Cooling Water / Silica in

Makeup Water

• Cycles of concentration (COC)  = Ca Hardness in Cooling Water/ Ca

Hardness in Makeup water

• Cycles of concentration (COC)  = Conductivity of Cooling Water /

Conductivity of Makeup water

• Cycles of concentration (COC) = Concentration of chlorides in circulating

water /Concentration of chlorides in make-up water
 Capacity of a cooling tower

• Cooling tower’s capacity:

• The cooling tower's capacity is the product of the mass flow rate
of water, specific heat, and temperature difference. This can also
be expressed as heat rejected in kCal/hr 

• Cooling tower capacity= (Q* X * ΔT) = 41359.42875

tons
Q = water flow rate
ΔT = Temperature  difference between inlet and outlet .

X = Specific heat 4.184 kJ / kg / °C

 LG ratio
• Liquid to gass ratio arrise from the fact that the amount of heat lost by the
liquid would be equal to the amount of heat taken-up by the air.

• L*Cw*(T1-T2) = G*(h1-h2)
• Design L/G: 1.67

• Cw = specific heat of water (Jkg-1K-1)

• T1= hot water temp (° C )
• T2 = Cold water temp (° C)
• L= Flow rate of water (tons/hr.)
• G= Flow rate air (tons/hr.)
• h1= enthalpy of air water vapor mixture at inlet wet bulb temp (joule)
• h2= enthalpy of air water vapor mixture at outlet wet bulb temp
(joule)
 Losses in a Cooling tower

• Following three main losses are observed in a cooling

tower:

1. Evaporation loss.
2. Drift/windage loss.
3. Blowdown loss.
For Reference
 Losses in a Cooling tower

• Evaporation loss:
• Cooling tower use water circuit to bring heat out, in this process,
part of cooling water will be evaporated, this is called evaporation
loss.

E= 136.9 m3/hr.

• Where:
• C = Circulating water in m3/hr
• lambda = Latent heat of vaporization of water
= 540 kcal/kg (or) 2260 kJ / kg or
• Ti – To  = water temperature difference from
tower top to tower bottom in °C
• Cp = specific heat of water = 1  kcal/kg / °C
(or) 4.184 kJ / kg / °C
 Losses in a Cooling tower
• Drift loss:
• Drift is water lost from cooling towers as liquid droplets are
entrained in the exhaust air.
• Drift eliminator:
• The eliminators prevent the water droplets and mist from
escaping the cooling tower. Eliminators do this by causing the
droplets to change direction and lose velocity at impact on the blade
walls and fall back into the tower. Eliminator material at FEL plant site
is PVC.
 Losses in a Cooling tower

• Drift loss for an Induced draft cooling tower accounts

for about 0.1% to 0.3% of circulating water (without the
drift eliminator).
• Induced draft cooling tower even with a drift eliminator
has a water loss of 0.001% of circulating water.

• Approx Drift loss = 0.15 m3/hr.

 Losses in a Cooling tower

• Blow-down loss:
• To avoid the high concentration of TDS, some of the water is drained
out of the cooling tower. This process is called blow-down.
• It can be calculated using formula given below:
• Blow-down = [ Evaporative loss – (COC – 1) x Drift loss] /(COC – 1)

• Blow down loss = 80.37 m3/hr. (@ COC value: 2.7)

 Design Parameters
• Design Hot Water Temperature: 40 °C
• Design Cold Water Temperature: 34 °C
• Design Ambient Wet Bulb Temperature: 30 °C
• Design Ambient Dry Bulb Temperature: 35.5°C
• Approach w.r.t. Ambient Wet Bulb Temp: 4 °C
• Range: 6 °C
• Type Construction: RC Concrete
• Tower Description: Counter-flow induced draft splash type
• Total Water Flow: 30000 m 3/h
• Flow per Cell: 3750 m3/h
• No. of Cells: 8 cells
 Dosing in cooling tower
• Flogard
• Anti-corrosion
• Depositrol
• Anti-scalent
• H2SO4
• Acidic
• Sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl)
• Basic
• Spectrus BP1500
• Bio-dispersent
 Suggestions

Options for energy efficient cooling tower operation:

• Cooling tower fans:
• Light weight, aerodynamic fan blades with variable velocity motors
helps save energy cost.
• Cooling water treatment:
• Proper water treatment helps saving cost of make-up water.
• Controlling drift loss:
• Using drift eliminator and louvers drift loss can be reduced.
• Conditions of nozzles and fills:
• Upkeep of nozzles and fills is crucial for efficiency and capacity
management.
• Use of louvers:
• It would help save man hours for screen cleaning activities at our
site.
 Steam Condenser

• Types of Steam Condenser

• Following are the two main types of steam condenser:
• Jet condensers (mixing type condensers)
• Parallel flow jet condenser
• Counter-flow or Low-level jet condenser
• Barometric or High-level jet condenser
• Ejector Condenser
• Surface condensers (non-mixing type condensers)
• Surface condenser
• Central flow condenser
• Evaporative condenser
Types of Condensers

Central Flow condensers

 Types of Condensers

A surface condenser is compact and

the heat exchange is more efficient. The
surface condenser has a great
advantage over the jet condensers, as
the condensate does not mix up with the
cooling water.

As a result of this, the whole condensate

can be reused in the boiler.

The cooling water enters at the bottom

tubes and leaves through the upper half
of the tubes. A section of tubes is
screened by providing a baffle. This
reduces the amount of water vapor
escaping with air.
 FEL Condenser Specifications
• Exhaust steam flow: 45.98 kg/s.
• Exhaust steam enthalpy: 2373.4 kJ/kg.
• Saturated steam temperature: 45.1 °C.
• Enthalpy of condensate: 188.74 KJ/kg.
• Heat flow rate: 3413 KW.
• CW mass flow rate: 3820 kg/s.
• Surface area: 3772 m2
• Effective tube length: 10400 mm
• Number of tubes: 6060
• Outside dia of tubes: 19.05 mm
• Cooling water nozzles: 4
• Rupture disc max pressure: 0.4 bar
 FEL Condenser Specifications
• Cooling water type: max 500ppm chlorides
• Design temperature: 120 °C shell side & 65 °C Tube side
• Condenser efficiency is: 41% . While it should be 0.54% according to
design values.
 Comparison
SI.
Jet Condenser Surface Condenser
no.
Cooling water and steam Cooling water and steam are not
1.
mixed up mixed up
It is less suitable for high It is more suitable for high
2.
capacity plants capacity plants
3. Condensation is wasted Condensate is reused

It requires less quantity of It requires a large quantity of

4.
circulating water circulating water

The condensing plant is The condensing plant is costly

5.
economical and simple and complicated

6. Maintenance cost is low Maintenance cost is high

 Condenser
• Suggestions:
• Ball cleaning system must be taken into service.
• Additional Screens installation at CW inlet Side.
• Strainer installation at Generator Cooler Lines.
Thank You