Performance of Cooling Towers

Performance of Cooling Towers

It is important to understand the performance of cooling towers. As time goes on, you’ll want to know if your tower is performing efficiently, so you’ll want to know how to calculate cooling tower capacity as well as some other parameters.

You should be aware of the cooling tower’s design parameters:

• Range. This is the temperature difference between the outlet temperature of the cooling tower and the water inlet.
• Approach. This is the difference between the outlet temperature and the ambient wet-bulb temperature. While range is important, the calculation of the approach is a better indicator of your cooling tower’s efficiency.
• Capacity. The cooling tower's capacity is the product of the mass flow rate of water, specific heat, and temperature difference. This can also be expressed as heat rejected in kCal/hr (Btu/h).
• Evaporation loss. This is the amount of water that is evaporated during the cooling process. This can be calculated using (m³/hr) = 0.00085 x 1.8 x Circulation Rate (m/hr) x (T1-T2). Where T1 is the inlet temperature and T2 is the outlet temperature.