To answer this question, we must first start with the basics of drift eliminators. Drift eliminators aid in the removal of water droplets from an airstream in a cooling tower. They work by changing the direction of the airflow and causing the entrained water droplets to impact the walls of the eliminator. When this happens, the droplets are removed from the airstream and run along the walls to drain back into the wet section of the tower. Since drift eliminators function through inertial impaction of the drift droplets on the eliminator walls, there are different aspects as to how they ..read more

The two most common polymers used in cooling tower fills and drift eliminators are polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polypropylene (PP). Both materials offer the benefits of durability, compatibility with the water environments of most cooling towers and processes, and cost-effective manufacturing techniques to provide many different engineered profiles suitable for cooling tower uses. However, one of the impediments that both polymers present is their hydrophobic nature. The surface energy of PVC and PP are high enough to want to repel water and make it bead up on the surface. Unfortunately, this ..read more

A question Brentwood occasionally receives from customers is: “Why is my tower not performing as designed?” Along with the inquiry, we are typically given the hot and cold water operating temperatures for their tower and an observation that the difference between the two is less than design specifications. A common misconception is that a tower’s operating range is an indication of how the tower is performing. The range of a recirculating cooling tower that serves a steady-state process is completely independent of tower performance. This can be seen by evaluating the heat load equation for a ..read more

In a recent blog article, we established the importance of mechanical filtration and reviewed a few common types for cooling tower applications. One of the key considerations for a tower owner when going through the selection process is to determine the best-suited installation method for their application. In the world of evaporative cooling, the three main filtration installation methods are basin sweeping, side stream, and full stream. Basin Sweeping A basin sweeping filtration installation focuses on cleaning settled solids from the basin floor of a cooling tower, independent of the proces ..read more

In evaporative cooling applications, the word drift is used to describe the small water droplets that escape the cooling tower within the air stream. Drift is not to be confused with plume, which is the cloud- or mist-like result of the evaporation process, commonly seen being emitted from cooling towers. While plume is condensing water vapor from evaporation, drift are actual droplets, and these droplets contain the chemicals and solids that are present within the circulating water. To give you an idea of how small drift droplets are, they typically range in size from 10 to 2,000 microns ..read more

Cooling towers are built from several different materials: wood, metal, and plastics just to name a few. Each of these materials of construction has an inherent risk in its ability to ignite, sustain, and spread a fire event. To properly mitigate the associated fire risk, it’s important for a tower owner/operator to understand how the components in their tower will react during a fire event. Testing can be completed to outline the relative burning behavior between different materials. For the polymers that typically makeup the cooling tower internals (fill, drift eliminators, lo ..read more

The two most common polymers used in cooling tower fills and drift eliminators are polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polypropylene (PP). Both materials offer the benefits of durability, compatibility with the water environments of most cooling towers and processes, and cost-effective manufacturing techniques to provide many different engineered profiles suitable for cooling tower uses. However, one of the impediments that both polymers present is their hydrophobic nature. The surface energy of PVC and PP are high enough to want to repel water and make it bead up on the surface. Unfortunately, this ..read more

To answer this question, we must first start with the basics of drift eliminators. Drift eliminators aid in the removal of water droplets from an airstream in a cooling tower. They work by changing the direction of the airflow and causing the entrained water droplets to impact the walls of the eliminator. When this happens, the droplets are removed from the airstream and run along the walls to drain back into the wet section of the tower. Since drift eliminators function through inertial impaction of the drift droplets on the eliminator walls, there are different aspects as to how they work a ..read more

Due to several fire events that occurred in New York City and the difficulty of extinguishing flames on top of high-rise buildings, building codes have been revised in recent years to include detailed requirements for cooling tower fill combustibility. A quick internet search for “cooling tower fire events” will provide a few high-profile incidents that prompted the revisions to the code. Most often, the fires were ignited during maintenance and cleaning of the tower. It can be difficult to understand the code requirements, so below, we have provided an interpretation of the codes and an expla ..read more

When evaluating which heat transfer media to install in a crossflow cooling tower, most options can be classified as a film fill or splash media. Film fill, either hanging sheets or bottom supported packs, are typically found in small to mid-size crossflow towers with good water quality. Whereas splash media, such as splash bars, are historically used in larger field erected crossflow cooling towers with poor water quality. Let’s focus on towers that are originally designed with a film fill that has quickly fouled, lost thermal performance, and requires replacement. Tower owners can simply swa ..read more