11-21: Improving The Thermal Performance Of Cooling Towers By Conditioning Of

Up to the present, attempts at improving performance of cooling towers has been focused on the design of the components such as the packing, nozzles, fan, etc. This paper presents an investigation that has been carried out to assess the viability of a new and novel approach by conditioning the entering air to the cooling tower in order to reduce the wet-bulb temperature, which is the principal external parameter that affects performance. The wet-bulb temperature of the air entering the cooling tower determines operating temperature levels throughout a water-cooled plant, process or system. It is very important to have the cold water temperature low enough to exchange heat or to condense vapors at the optimum temperature level. The investigation of performance involved the development of a suite of integrated computer models which were used along with real plant data to assess the performance improvement achievable with the proposed air conditioning system. The results of the analysis indicated the viability of this new and novel approach.