Cooling Tower Terminology

Windage or Drift — Water droplets that are carried out of the cooling tower with the exhaust air. Drift droplets have the same concentration of impurities as the water entering the tower. The drift rate is typically reduced by employing baffle-like devices, called drift eliminators, through which the air must travel after leaving the fill and spray zones of the tower. Drift can also be reduced by using warmer entering cooling tower temperatures.

Blow-out — Water droplets blown out of the cooling tower by wind, generally at the air inlet openings. Water may also be lost, in the absence of wind, through splashing or misting. Devices such as wind screens, louvers, splash deflectors and water diverters are used to limit these losses.

Plume — The stream of saturated exhaust air leaving the cooling tower. The plume is visible when water vapor it contains condenses in contact with cooler ambient air, like the saturated air in one's breath fogs on a cold day. Under certain conditions, a cooling tower plume may present fogging or icing hazards to its surroundings. Note that the water evaporated in the cooling process is "pure" water, in contrast to the very small percentage of drift droplets or water blown out of the air inlets.

Draw-off or blow-down — The portion of the circulating water flow that is removed (usually discharged to a drain) in order to maintain the amount of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and other impurities at an acceptably low level. Higher TDS concentration in solution may result from greater cooling tower efficiency. However the higher the TDS concentration, the greater the risk of scale, biological growth, and corrosion. The amount of blow-down is primarily regulated by measuring by the electrical conductivity of the circulating water. Biological growth, scaling, and corrosion can be prevented by chemicals (respectively, biocide, sulfuric acid, corrosion inhibitor). On the other hand, the only practical way to decrease the electrical conductivity is by increasing the amount of blow-down discharge and subsequently increasing the amount of clean make-up water.

Zero bleed for cooling towers, also called zero blow-down for cooling towers, is a process for significantly reducing the need for bleeding water with residual solids from the system by enabling the water to hold more solids in solution.^[42][43][44]

Make-up — The water that must be added to the circulating water system in order to compensate for water losses such as evaporation, drift loss, blow-out, blow-down, etc.

Noise — Sound energy emitted by a cooling tower and heard (recorded) at a given distance and direction. The sound is generated by the impact of falling water, by the movement of air by fans, the fan blades moving in the structure, vibration of the structure, and the motors, gearboxes or drive belts.

Approach — The approach is the difference in temperature between the cooled-water temperature and the entering-air wet bulb temperature (twb). Since the cooling towers are based on the principles of evaporative cooling, the maximum cooling tower efficiency depends on the wet bulb temperature of the air. The wet-bulb temperature is a type of temperature measurement that reflects the physical properties of a system with a mixture of a gas and a vapor, usually air and water vapor

Range — The range is the temperature difference between the warm water inlet and cooled water exit.

Fill — Inside the tower, fills are added to increase contact surface as well as contact time between air and water, to provide better heat transfer. The efficiency of the tower depends on the selection and amount of fill. There are two types of fills that may be used:

Full-flow filtration — Full-flow filtration continuously strains particulates out of the entire system flow. For example, in a 100-ton system, the flow rate would be roughly 300 gal/min. A filter would be selected to accommodate the entire 300 gal/min flow rate. In this case, the filter typically is installed after the cooling tower on the discharge side of the pump. While this is the ideal method of filtration, for higher flow systems it may be cost-prohibitive.

Side-stream filtration — Side-stream filtration, although popular and effective, does not provide complete protection. With side-stream filtration, a portion of the water is filtered continuously. This method works on the principle that continuous particle removal will keep the system clean. Manufacturers typically package side-stream filters on a skid, complete with a pump and controls. For high flow systems, this method is cost-effective. Properly sizing a side-stream filtration system is critical to obtain satisfactory filter performance, but there is some debate over how to properly size the side-stream system. Many engineers size the system to continuously filter the cooling tower basin water at a rate equivalent to 10% of the total circulation flow rate. For example, if the total flow of a system is 1,200 gal/min (a 400-ton system), a 120 gal/min side-stream system is specified.

Cycle of concentration — Maximum allowed multiplier for the amount of miscellaneous substances in circulating water compared to the amount of those substances in make-up water.

Treated timber — A structural material for cooling towers which was largely abandoned in the early 2000s. It is still used occasionally due to its low initial costs, in spite of its short life expectancy. The life of treated timber varies a lot, depending on the operating conditions of the tower, such as frequency of shutdowns, treatment of the circulating water, etc. Under proper working conditions, the estimated life of treated timber structural members is about 10 years.

Leaching — The loss of wood preservative chemicals by the washing action of the water flowing through a wood structure cooling tower.

Pultruded FRP — A common structural material for smaller cooling towers, fibre-reinforced plastic (FRP) is known for its high corrosion-resistance capabilities. Pultruded FRP is produced using pultrusion technology, and has become the most common structural material for small cooling towers. It offers lower costs and requires less maintenance compared to reinforced concrete, which is still in use for large structures.