Cooling towers applications

Plastic packing of very low pressure drop, developed for water-air cooling tower applications. 

Debris particles that are heavier than water migrate to the outer wall area and slither down into a collection bowl that is periodically blown down. Very little water is lost. Typical performance is 97.8% of solids with specific gravity exceeding 1.2 down to 45 microns. Side stream filtration is more common in cooling tower applications. The scheme uses a small dedicated pump to draw dirty water from the sump, direct it through a filtration device and sent it back to the basin. 

An innovation is a direct-contact condenser mounted on the vapor body. A short piece of vertical pipe connects the vapor body with the condenser to minimize piping and pressure drop. This design also eliminates structural steel for support of a separate condenser. For cooling tower applications, the hotwell is elevated to permit gravity flow of water from the hotwell to the top of the cooling tower, thus eliminating the need for a pump. 

It is important that drive shafts be properly balanced. Imbalance not only causes tower vibration but also induces higher loads and excessive wear on the mechanical equipment coupled to the shaft. With drive shafts approaching speeds of 1800 rpm in most cooling tower applications, it is necessary that the shafts be dynamically balanced to reduce vibrational forces to a minimum. 

There are many applications in which it is important to maintain an average basin water temperature at an optimum value. One example is a utility cooling tower application in which an optimum average basin water temperature is required to ensure efficient turbine operation. In this example, the optimum temperature falls between 60° and 75°F. Ice prevention systems should be designed to provide sufficient flexibility to control the basin water temperature between specified limits without significant ice formation for a wide range of heat load and ambient environmental conditions. 

Cooling towers are used in many industrial areas to cool water to remove excess heat produced by fuel combustion or by other reactions. Nowhere is more cooling water used than in the production of electricity from nuclear fission. In virtually every cooling tower application, cool water is taken from a surface source (river, estuary, or lake) and is returned to its source heated up. The introduction of warmed water to its source disrupts marine plant and animal life and also catalyzes chemical reactions. These have the effect of increasing the concentrations of toxic chemicals in water, which is often taken up for drinking use downstream... 

While the foregoing examples have dealt with applications on centrifugal pumps, the same sort of analysis can be made for reciprocating pumps, reciprocating compressors, or other rotary users hke cooling-tower fans. 

Cooling towers are broadly classified on the basis of the type of draft natural draft (natural convection), mechanical draft (forced convection) and mechanical and natural. Further distinction is made based on (1) the type of flow i.e. - crossflow, counterflow, cocurrent flow (2) the type of heat dissipation-wet (evaporative cooling), dry, wet-dry and (3) the type of application-industrial or power plant. Each of the major types of cooling towers has a distinct configuration. The major designs are summarized in Figures 1 through 8 and a brief description of each follows. 

Cooling tower fan motors must be properly selected for long life and trouble free operation. In addition, it is important to match the motor s enclosure to the application. Motors in draw through applications that are mounted directly in the air stream, for example, experience tough duty and must be of the totally enclosed type. Motors are categorized as follows ... 

In addition, the small motor fan attempts to blow air down over the motor and is no match for the much bigger cooling tower fan drawing air up and around the motor. The small fan in this case is useless- even counterproductive. This application needs a TEAO motor. Cooling tower manufacturers sometimes purchase special motors tailored for their application... special grease, seals, slingers, weep hole locations, epoxy coatings, etc.. Such features make an OEM replacement more desirable than an off the shelf replacement. 

Qualitative results of checklist analyses vary, but generally the analysis produces the answers yes, no, not applicable, or needs more information. The checklist is included in the PrHA report to summarize the noted deficiencies. Understanding these deficiencies leads to sa fety improvement alternatives for consideration, and to identified hazards with suggested actions. I igtires 3.3,1-4 and 3.3.1-5 present checklist analyses of the Dock 8 HF Supply and the Cooling tower chlorination respectively. 

Gears should be specified as American Gear Manufacturer s Association (AGMA) requirements for cooling tower service in order to ensure an adequate minimum service factor rating of 2.0. The spiral bevel type is probably used a litde more often than the worm gear. It is also cheaper. When gears are used with induced draft applications, the... 

Although these units find initial application in areas of limited water, they have not been limited to this situation. In many instances they are more economical than cooling tower systems and have been successfully applied in combination with cooling towers (see Figure 10-184). Economic comparisons should include such items as tower costs, basin, make-up facilities, water treatment, pumps for circulation, power supply, blow down, piping, etc. For small installations of air-cooled units, they should be compared... 

Open recirculating systems These are more amenable to inhibition since it is possible to maintain a closer control on water composition. Corrosion inhibition in these systems is closely allied to a number of other problems that have to be considered in the application of water treatment. Most of these arise from the use of cooling towers, ponds, etc. in which the water is subject to constant evaporation and contamination leading to accumulation of dirt, insoluble matter, aggressive ions and bacterial growths, and to variations in pH. A successful water treatment must therefore take all these factors into account and inhibition will often be accompanied by scale prevention and bactericidal treatments. 

Amine sulfide terminal moieties can be imparted into vinyl polymers by using aminethiols as chain transfer agents in aqueous radical polymerization [1182]. The polymers are useful as mineral dispersants. Other uses are as water-treatment additives for boiler waters, cooling towers, reverse osmosis applications, and geothermal processes and oil wells and as detergent additives... 

Applications include reactor off-gas quenching, vacuum condensers, cooler-condensers, desuperheating and humidification. Water-cooling towers are a particular example of direct-contact heat exchange. In direct-contact cooler-condensers the condensed liquid is frequently used as the coolant, Figure 12.65. 

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