All About Cooling Towers

This brief guide is about cooling towers. A cooling tower can be described as a heat transfer or heat rejection system that works to move waste or unwanted heat from a process or environment, expelling it to the atmosphere. Cooling towers do this through by utilising the cooling effects of a water stream which helps to lower temperatures.

Types of Cooling Tower

Typically cooling towers use either the process of water evaporation to remove process heat and cool the working fluid to near the wet-bulb air temperature. The other common form of cooling used by towers involves the use of closed circuit dry cooling which uses air to lower the temperature of the working fluid to near the dry-bulb air temperature.

Where are Cooling Towers Used?

Cooling towers are used in a whole range of commercial, industrial and domestic applications. Common uses for cooling towers include HVAC cooling systems used to cool and condition the air inside buildings, controlling the temperature of heat transfer systems in thermal power stations, cooling the circulating water used in oil refineries, gas, petrochemical and other chemical installations.

Natural & Induced Draft Towers

There are two main types of cooling tower and they are the natural draft and the induced draft cooling tower.

Cooling Systems

Cooling towers come in many different shapes and sizes from small commercial/domestic sized roof and wall mounted units to large concrete hyperbolic structures that can be up to 200m tall. The hyperbolic cooling towers can often be seen at large power stations, coal-fired generation plants and large industrial and process facilities where heat transfer and cooling demands can be significant. Although these large hyperbolic cooling towers are probably recognisable by most people as a cooling tower, most cooling systems tend to be much smaller, and can be found on or near buildings as part of the air conditioning for the internal spaces.

World Class Cooling Tower Water Treatment Solutions

Water Treatment Services is a leading independent UK water and wastewater treatment, air, energy and environmental services company offering expert water management solutions including cooling tower water treatment, industrial wastewater treatment, energy efficiency and engineering support services.

With offices in London serving the South and South East England, Manchester (North West), Birmingham (Midlands), Bristol (South East England and Wales), Leeds (North and North East) and Glasgow (Scotland), supported by regional teams of specially trained engineers, site service specialists and technical experts we can offer water management solutions across the whole of the UK.

Contact us today to learn how our cooling tower water management and engineering solutions can help you.