Subject: Water Towers

From: [email-masked] ()
Date: Wed, 02 Aug 1995 02:26:13 GMT

I'd like some information about a cooling device that I heard a very
littlle about. These things are apparently in use in the the
Southwest- Yuma, Phoniex,etc.  They use water falling down some
baffles or ??   that chills it for use in cooling residential and
commercial bldgs. These devices can be four feet square and sixteen
feet high and probably bigger. My brother, who used to live in Yuma
thought they were called water towers. I'm not talking about swamp
coolers.

Can anybody help me out here?

[email-masked]

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From: Gunsmoke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Aug 1995 17:56:10 GMT

>Can anybody help me out here?
Hello.

Could your brother be referring to a Cooling Tower?  

A "wet cooling tower" used for decreasing the temperature of hot, dry air 
would work very much the same as an evaporative (swamp) cooler (also 
referred to on occasion as an adiabatic saturator).  The hot air would 
enter through baffles, pass through a cold water spray, and exit the 
tower at a lower temperature and a higher relative humidity.  The baffles 
also work as a catchment device for the water overspray.  The water 
hitting the baffles is directed to flow down into the sump.  That is why 
you see an inverted triangular shape for many (not all) cooling towers.

As the hot dry air passes through the cold water droplets, a transfer of 
energy occurs when the heat from the air vaporizes some of the water and 
increases the temperature of the portion of water that passes through.  
In essence, you are decreasing the "sensible" heat of the air at the 
expense of increasing the "latent" heat.  See Paul Milligan's response to 
the "Latent Heat" thread for a good explanation of sensible/latent.

However, cooling towers are typically used for maintaining good operating 
temperatures for equipment.  For example, we use mechanical shakers where 
I work.  Cold (relative) water is the cooling medium that is used to 
remove heat caused by friction between the armature and shaker head.  The 
water is recirculated through the cooling tower.  Our towers are also 
used for cooling the compressors of our large refrigeration system.

It sounds like your brother is talking about a cooling tower, sorry if 
I'm wrong.  Hope this helps.

Later.

Matt Dillon

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From: [email-masked] (Joseph Benning)
Date: 2 Aug 1995 18:56:19 GMT

[email-masked] wrote:
: I'd like some information about a cooling device that I heard a very
: littlle about. These things are apparently in use in the the
: Southwest- Yuma, Phoniex,etc.  They use water falling down some
: baffles or ??   that chills it for use in cooling residential and
: commercial bldgs. These devices can be four feet square and sixteen
: feet high and probably bigger. My brother, who used to live in Yuma
: thought they were called water towers. I'm not talking about swamp
: coolers.

Your brother seems to have described a cooling tower. 

The devise is for cooling condenser water, the water medium which removes 
heat from a chiller system, most often found in large comercial AC
systems. (I don't ever remember seeing a residential cooling tower.)

Within cooling towers, are fans, which move great volumes of air through 
the water cascading over the baffles you seem to have described. The 
circulated air removes unwanted the heat from the condenser water. Nuclear 
power plants use natural draft cooling towers for removing unwanted heat. 
(Those are the distinctive convex shaped towers associated with nuclear 
power plants.)

Hope this helps you.

Joseph Benning
--
[email-masked]/.\-----Northeastern Illinois University
Joseph A. Benning              / \:/ \       Chicago, Illinois, USA 60625  
                             /   [ ]   \
"I've seen it before Joe.../   /{x.x}\   \...You're an Internet junkie; 
    Roadkill, on the     /        U        \ Information Super Highway!"

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From: [email-masked] (Scott Martin)
Date: 2 Aug 1995 20:38:45 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] says...
>Can anybody help me out here?
They are called cooling towers, and are very common devices in larger 
buildings.  Companies to talk to include Baltimore Air Coil, Marley 
Cooling Towers and Evapco, and the numbers should be available in the 
phone book.

Scott Martin
Efficiency Engineering