Cooling Tower Fundamentals

The basic concept behind cooling tower is evaporation. Typically in a cooling tower 70 to 90% of cooling occurs due to evaporation and the balance through convective cooling. Evaporation is optimized by atomizing the water stream in to tiny droplets which exposes maximum surface area.To further facilitate the air water contact different types of fills are used. Dry air will saturate to equilibrium (wet bulb temperature) while the water is cooled below the ambient dry bulb temperature via the removal of evaporation heat.
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Types of Cooling Towers

Cooling Towers are classified by their type of draft.
Mechanical (Forced / Induced draft) Unassisted (Natural draft)

Fans are used in mechanical draft design to move air through the structure. Mechanical draft tower is further categorized:
Forced draft the fan located in the air stream entering the tower. Induced draft the fan is located in the air stream leaving the tower. Cross flow air enters tower from side and flows horizontally across the falling water stream. Counter flow - air enters tower from bottom and flows counter current to the falling water stream.
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Induced draft is further categorized:

Cooling Tower Design Criterion

While designing a seawater cooling tower the following design parameters are considered:
Makeup water availability and composition (cycles of concentration) Circulation rate Duty Design wet bulb temperature Approach temperature Drift requirements

Selection of design wet bulb temperature is a critical design activity. Industry practice is to use a number that will not exceed more than 3 to 7% of the year. This infers that there will be certain peak wet bulb temperatures at which cooling tower will not be able to maintain design outlet temperatures.
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United Seawater Cooling Tower

Jubail Industrial City seawater cooling system was designed as a once through supply and return canal network coolant system, which is part of the local infrastructure. In case of United Petrochemical complex the allocation request far exceeded the availability of the seawater in the canal network. Thus there was an impetus to move to a seawater cooling tower. The following are the three primary categories of cooling tower design activities:
Hydraulics Thermodynamics Mechanical design
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Hydraulics
Since seawater is supplied to United through a canal system, elevations were critical in the design to avoid unnecessary pumping requirements and to improve the reliability of the system. Since this tower was the first of its kind in Jubail area, it was decided to have a partial backup once through capability. The seawater intake basin level is controlled by seawater supply canal. Tower basin is elevated by 4 meters so that cooled seawater is returned to seawater intake basin by gravity, avoiding expensive booster pumps.
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Thermodynamics
Based on 5% not-to-exceed philosophy, the design wet bulb temperature was selected as 30C. Due to the requirement of one of the process units the maximum cooling water supply temperature was fixed at 38C. As United cooling water system is a closed freshwater circulation system, it was necessary to select an economic plate and frame exchanger approach of 3C, which has resulted in cold sea water temperature requirement of 35C.

Thermodynamics
The following slide # 9 showing meteorological data indicates that highest recorded wet bulb temperature is 35C and occurring for few hours on some days of peak summer. United studied the possibility of designing the cooling tower for an approach of 3C. However it was found that there would be significant capital cost premium with no appreciable facility performance improvement. The seawater exit temperature does not raise linearly with wet bulb temperature as tower efficiency increases at higher wet bulb temperatures. Additionally if the flow rate is reduced then the exit temperature will be reduced further as efficiency of the cooling tower will increase. Please see the following slide # 10.
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Wet-Bulb Temperature Data

Temp. Range Year Year 1999 2000 120 Hrs 134 Hrs 115 Hrs 121 Hrs 70 Hrs
43 Hrs 3 Hrs

>30oC and <=31oC

Year 2001 119 Hrs 46 Hrs 8 Hrs

0 Hrs 0 Hrs
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>31oC and <=32oC >32oC and <=33oC

>33oC and <=34oC >34oC and <=35oC

94 Hrs
50 Hrs 10 Hrs

Note: One year is 8,760 Hours

Performance Curves
COLD WATER TEMPERATURE AS A FUNCTION OF WET BULB TEMPERATURE, AND WATERFLOW (% Design) 42
COLD WATER TEMPERATURE

40 38 36 34 32 30 28 26 24 15 20 25 30 35 40 WETBULB TEMPERATURE DEGC

110.00%

100.00%

90.00%

Design Conditions
12C differential across the tower (at a design flow rate of 70,000 M3/Hr). Design ambient wet bulb temperature is 30C. Corresponding to 96 97% not - to - exceed wet bulb temperature. The design wet bulb temperature considered as inlet to the tower is 31.1C. The United cooling tower is designed for an approach of 5C, with reference to ambient temperature without recirculation. Selection of design wet bulb temperature was considered by the design team as a critical activity.
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United Cooling Tower Design Conditions

Seawater
47 Degc

Cooling Water
COOLING TOWER 12 0C Cooling Range PLATE COOLERS

51 Degc

PLANT

13 0C Differential

35 Degc 38 Degc
Tower Inlet Wet bulb temperature: Ambient Wet bulb temperature:

31 Degc 30 Degc
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Mechanical Design
Various material selection available for seawater cooling tower:
Fiberglass Wood Concrete

Factors for selection of material:

Cost Schedule Structural integrity Maintenance Material availability
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Mechanical Design
Due to high salt Gulf environment chloride penetration leads to corrosion of reinforcing steel and concrete spalling. Various preventive measures considered:
Cathodic protection Epoxy coating Use of high density concrete Deep embedment of rebar in concrete External coating of concrete surfaces

United seawater cooling tower utilizes a combination of high density concrete, deep embedment of rebar in the concrete and an external epoxy coating on concrete members. 13

Mechanical Design
United seawater cooling tower has:
20 cells (One spare cell for maintenance) Cell dimensions 16.6M X 15.9M X 18.2M (high)

United seawater cooling tower structure consists of:

1800 precast concrete beams 170 precast concrete columns

United seawater construction:

cooling

tower

material

of

Tower Concrete Siding / decking / fan stacks/ fan blades Fiberglass Drift eliminators / internal distribution piping PVC Splash fill Polypropylene
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Chemical Treatment
Objectives of chemical treatment:
Bio Control: Control of Biological growth. Bio control is achieved by dosing halogens, typically Chlorine. Chlorine is stripped off in the tower, requiring continuous dosing. Scale control: Higher operating cycles and high skin temperatures in downstream exchangers can lead to scaling in the exchangers. Scale control chemicals prevent scaling for a given operating cycle and skin temperature.
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Conclusion
Cooling tower technology can be adapted to seawater cooling service as long as consideration is given to critical design parameters such as:
Cycles of Concentration Design wet-bulb temperature Approach Materials of construction Chemical treatment
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Conclusion
For plant expansions or even new projects, if cooling duty available from seawater is not sufficient to meet the plant cooling requirement sea water cooling towers can be used to increase the apparent cooling duty available. Cooling tower capital and operating costs can be much lower than the other alternatives.
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