Cooling efficiency of filler unit in non-chemical cooling tower with advanced contact surface

Abstract

The paper deals with a pressing problem on the effective cooling of circulating water at industrial plants using the evaporative cooling towers. A new design of the cooling tower is developed that prevents the biological fouling of the equipment surfaces without the use of chemicals. The design of the filler unit with the inclined-corrugated plates and the metal mesh provides the advanced gas-liquid contact surface. An evaluation of the cooling efficiency of the inclined corrugated contact elements is performed by means of the volumetric coefficient values of heat transfer in the gas phase. From experimental data, it has been found that with increasing the wetting density, the volumetric heat transfer coefficients also increase at the same mean-flow air velocity. A comparative analysis of Merkel numbers for the developed filler unit with the existing analogs as the characteristic of cooling capacity indicated its superiority.