TY - JOUR 
A1 - Ruiz Ramírez, Javier
AU - Lucas Miralles, Manuel
AU - Martínez Beltrán, Pedro Juan
AU - Sánchez Kaiser, Antonio
AU - Zamora Parra, Blas
AU - Viedma Robles, Antonio
T1 - Experimental study on the performance of a mechanical cooling tower fitted with different types of water distribution systems.
Y1 - 2011
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10317/4491
AB - Cooling towers are evaporative heat transfer devices in which atmospheric air cools warm water, with direct contact between the water and the air, by evaporating part of the water. As a result, water droplets are incorporated in the air stream and, depending on the velocity of the air, will be taken away from the unit. This is known as drift. Although cooling tower drift is objectionable for several reasons, the most hazardous problem concerning human health is the emission of chemicals or microorganisms to the atmosphere. Regarding to microorganisms, the most well-known pathogens are the multiple species of bacteria collectively known as legionella.
The binomial water distribution system-drift eliminator is identified to be the main responsible of cooling tower drift. While drift eliminators work by changing the direction of the airflow and separating
droplets from the airstream through inertial impact, water distribution systems affect the mechanics of setting up the drops.
Drift eliminator’s performance can be quantified mainly by two factors. On one hand the droplet collection efficiency and, on the other hand, the pressure drop across the eliminator. In contrast, water
distribution systems are characterized by the pressure drop across itself and the achieved size of the particles spread. Although the factors mentioned above are conditioned by the binomial water
distribution system-drift eliminator, it affects mainly the quantity of water taken away from the tower and the thermal performance. From the reviewed bibliography, some studies assessing the effect of the drift eliminator on cooling tower’s performance have been found. Nevertheless no studies regarding the influence of the water
distribution system on cooling tower’s performance have been found. In this sense, this paper studies the thermal performance of a forced draft counter-flow wet cooling tower fitted with different water
distribution systems for many drift eliminators for a wide range of air and water mass flow rates. The data registered in the experimental set-up were employed to obtain correlations of the Tower
Characteristic, which defines the cooling tower’s thermal performance. The outlet water temperature predicted by these correlations was compared with the experimentally registered values, obtaining a
maximum difference of ±0.95%.
KW - Mecánica de Fluidos
KW - Cooling tower
KW - Water distribution system
KW - Experimental study
KW - Cooling tower performance
LA - eng
ER -