Mechanical-draft cooling towers performance

Lichtenstein, J. "Performance and Selection of Mechanical Draft Cooling Towers, " ASME Trans. (1943). 

Performance Curves for Mechanical Draft Cooling Towers Hallett, G. F. 

Under certain conditions, the exhaust air of conventional mechanical draft cooling towers may form a fog plume, causing visibility and icing problems to highways and equipment. In cases where this cannot be tolerated, a combination wet/dry cooling tower is shown to be effective fog plume control method. The paper describes the basic phenomena of cooling tower fog formation. The operation and performance characteristics of the wet/dry tower are discussed as well as a method of select wet/dry design criteria. 11 refs, cited. 

Mechanical-draft cooling towers are the type most often found in the process industries. These provide their own air flow, and wind direction and velocity therefore do not greatly affect their thermal performance. They can be classified in several different ways ... 

J. R. Singham, The Thermal Performance of Natural Draft Cooling Towers, Imperial CoUege of Science and Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, London, 1967. 

Performance, 387 Ground Area vs. Height, 391 Pressure Losses, 393 Fan Horsepower for Mechanical Draft Tower, 392 Water Rates and Distribution, 393 Blow-Down and Continuation Build-Up, 394 Example 915 Determining Approximate Blow-Down for Cooling Tower, 395 Pre-... 

Figure 6.11 Equation 6.8 correlates mechanical-draft performance data. (Data obtained from Cooling Tower Institute Bulletin PFM-110.)...

Provides abstracts of worldwide research on design and performance of mechanical draft and natural draft wet, dry, and dry-wet combination cooling towers. Abstracts cover studies on size reduction, corrosion protection, and economic optimization of cooling towers primarily used with nuclear power plants and fossil fuel power plants. Also covered are abstracts which pertain to cooling towers used in waste-water treatment. It contains 305 abstracts, 65 of which are new entries to the previous edition. 

Counterflow-induced draft towers, Figure 9.17(d), are the most commonly used in the process industries. Mechanical draft towers are capable of greater control than natural draft and in some cases can cool water to below a 5°F approach. The flow of air is quite uniform at a high velocity and the discharge is positive so that there is a minimum of backflow of humid air into the tower. The elevated fan location creates some noise and structural problems. It has been reported that mechanical draft towers at low water rates (19,800 gpm) perform better than natural draft towers. 

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