Water Treatment Cooling System Basics (GBF)

Water Cooling
Chemistry System Basics
Water
Cooling
Treatment
Water
Technologies
Management
Building Facilities Management
GBF Compound
By
Diana Galicia
Fundamentals of Cooling System
Types of Cooling Towers
Cooling Towers Definitions & Calculation
Assessment of Cooling Towers & its

Dynamics
THE COOLING PROCESS
WHAT CONCEPTS ARE IMPORTANT?
The purpose of cooling water systems is to

transfer heat from one substance to another.
The substance that gives up its heat is
“cooled”. The substance that receives the
heat is the “coolant”.
Cooling systems are composed of two components: a heat
exchanger and a cooling unit.
The cooling unit removes the heat gained from the contact of
cooling water with hot equipment and fluids in the heat
exchanger. The heat is removed from the returning cooling
water by transferring the heat to air through evaporation.
The heat exchanger allows cooling water to remove
heat from production and facility equipment or fluids
without direct contact.
The common measurement of heat is the BTU or
British Thermal Unit. A BTU is the amount of heat
required to raise the temperature of 1 pound of water 1
°F. Water has a tremendous capacity to absorb heat.
Cooling System Basics
FUNDAMENTALS OF COOLING WATER
WHAT ARE THE THREE BASIC TYPES OF COOLING SYSTEMS?
There are three basic types of cooling water

systems that are commonly used in industry:
1. ONCE-THROUGH
2. CLOSED RECIRCULATING
3. OPEN RECIRCULATING
WHAT ARE THE THREE BASIC TYPES OF COOLING SYSTEMS?
1. ONCE- THROUGH COOLING WATER SYSTEMS

Simplest system, in which cooling water is used on a one-time
basis, then discharged back to its original source.
2. CLOSED RECIRCULATING COOLING WATER SYSTEMS

Re-circulates a fixed volume of water in a closed loop that is not
open to the atmosphere. The only makeup required is to replace
water lost due to leaks.
3. OPEN RECIRCULATING COOLING WATER SYSTEMS

This is the most common cooling system design. Water is reused
by recycling it across the cooling tower. The tower cools the
water for reuse in the process by evaporation.
Advantages Disadvantages
Expensive to treat
Minimal temperature
large water volume
change
Environmental
Low operating
concern for “thermal
expense
pollution”
Requires large
Low cost – pumps volume of
inexpensive water
In counter flow induced draft cooling towers, the water being cooled moves from the top
down through the tower, while air is “pulled” in the “counter direction,” from the bottom
up.
In cross flow induced draft cooling towers, the water being cooled moves from the top
down through the tower, while air moves "across" through the water flow and then out
the exhaust. Air is moved by fans, blowers, or natural draft.
Air is "pushed" through the
tower from an inlet to an
exhaust
• Advantages: suited for
high air resistance & fans
are relatively quiet
• Disadvantages:
recirculation due to high
air-entry and low air-exit
velocities
In evaporative condenser cooling units, the fluid that removes heat
from the process is kept isolated from the water used for
evaporative cooling. The cooling water is never circulated to the
process it cools. Some systems use condensable fluids or
refrigerants for transferring heat.
EVAPORATION
Evaporation is the process by which hot water, returning from the
process heat exchanger, releases its heat to the atmosphere, is
cooled and ready to return back to the process. Evaporation takes
place in the cooling tower. The cooling tower provides the ideal conditions
for water to evaporate. These conditions are:
• The tower breaks the water up into little droplets, thus
providing more escape routes for water molecules to
evaporate.
• The rapid flow of air removes evaporated water molecules
which allows even more to escape.
In the evaporation process, heat energy is removed as the water molecule
changes from a liquid to a gas.
As a rule of thumb, for each
10ºF that the circulated
water needs to be cooled,
one percent of the cooling
water is evaporated in the
cooling tower.
The first container is the water before evaporation. In the second
container, some of the water has evaporated. The bottom layer
represents the volume of water left over after this evaporation. The
top layer represents the source water added to make up for water
volume lost to evaporation. Altogether, the resulting mixture has
the same volume of water as the first container but contains more
solids and is, therefore, more concentrated.
 Concentrated solids can build up in the form of scale,
causing blockages and corrosion to the cooling
system materials. Also, the multiplication of algae
and other biological matter can lead to corrosion,
plugging of film fill, and eventually collapse of film
fill.
 The solids and biological matter must be removed
from the system before their concentrations reach
levels that cause serious damage. Water treatment
can reduce the impact of the solids and biological
matter, however, after a certain point impurities
become too concentrated for the water to be reused
cost-effectively.
 To stay below this maximum acceptable
concentration and to maintain the tower’s water
balance, new water needs to be added to the cooling
tower (called makeup water) and a portion of the
concentrated cooling tower water needs to be
discharged from the cooling tower (called blowdown
or bleed)
MAKE-UP WATER
Makeup water is the new water added to compensate for the
volume of water lost through evaporation, blowdown, and other
water losses.
BLOWDOWN
To prevent the dissolved solids concentration in the cooling water
from becoming so high that mineral scale deposits begin to form,
part of the recirculating water is deliberately and continuously
dumped from the system. This procedure is called blowdown or
bleed-off. This procedure controls the build-up of dissolved solids by
replacing the more highly concentrated system water with an equal volume
of fresh, less concentrated makeup water.
The first container is the mixed result after evaporation, as shown in
Figure 1.08. In the second container, the bottom layer represents
the volume of concentrated cooling water to be removed from this
container as blowdown and the top layer represents the volume
from the original water source added to make up for the water lost
through blowdown. The third container shows the stabilization of
this process as water is evaporated, blown down, and made up
continuously.
Therefore, blowdown reduces the amount of
solids and biological matter in the cooling
tower by removing a portion of the
concentrated solids. “Fresh” makeup water
then dilutes the remaining cooling tower
water by replacing the water volume lost
through blowdown, evaporation, drift (water
droplets that escape through the plume of the
cooling tower), and other losses, such as
leaks.
CONCENTRATION RATIO (Cycles of Concentration)
Only pure water, H2O, can evaporate. No other dissolved

solids leave the liquid water. If there are no other water losses
from the system, the evaporation process causes an increase in
the concentration of dissolved solids in the re-circulating
cooling water.
Each time the increase in the total amount of

solids in the tower is equal to the amount of solids
already present in the makeup water, this is equal to
1 cycle of concentration in the tower. For example,
if the makeup water dissolved solids are 500ppm
and the cooling water dissolved solids are 1000,
then the cycles of concentration is 2.
Each 10°F drop in the water temperature across

the cooling tower, results from a 1% loss of
cooling water due to evaporation. When this 1%
loss of water occurs, there is a 1% increase in the
concentration of dissolved solids in the water. If
the cooling water is allowed to continue
concentrating without any control, eventually the
mineral solids will get so high that scale deposits
will occur.
If the cycle of concentration is increased, only
a portion of water is discharged as blowdown
and the rest is recirculated with more new
water to make up for the water loss in the
blowdown. The following equations quantify
the relationships of blowdown, evaporation,
and the cycles of concentration based on
mass balancing:
To quantify the
makeup volume, a
volume-balancing
equation provides
the relationship of
blowdown and
evaporation to the
makeup water volume
Usually water volume losses due to leaks in
the cooling system are insignificant. However,
if leaks are substantial, the water balance
equation needs to include the volume of
water loss due to leaks, as shown below
Unintentional water loss may result from
mechanical leaks, drift or spray from the
cooling tower, or basin overflow. Drift occurs
when water droplets are carried out of the
cooling tower by the air flowing through the
tower.
Losses due to drift can be kept small in a
properly maintained cooling tower and
virtually eliminated with drift eliminators.
GLOSSARY OF OTHER COOLING WATER TERMINOLOGY
Temperature Drop – also called Delta T. In a cooling tower, the difference in
the temperature of the hot return water and the cooled supply water in the basin.
The temperature drop is used to calculate the amount of evaporation.
Recirculation Rate – the flow rate of the cooling water in gallons per minute
(gpm) being maintained by the recirculating pumps
Makeup Water – the water that must be added to replace water lost by
evaporation and blowdown.
Makeup = Blowdown + Evaporation
Holding Capacity – the total amount of water held by the cooling water system
as expressed in gallons.
Time per Cycle – the time it takes all the water in the system to make one trip
around the recirculating loop
Drift – tower water that is entrained in the exit air, but not including evaporation.
Water droplets carried out of the tower with the air. Drift represents a form of
blowdown.
The basic components of an evaporative tower are:
 Frame and casing,
 fill,
 cold water basin,
 drift eliminators,
 air inlet,
 louvers,
 nozzles and
 fans.

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Water Cooling

Chemistry System Basics

Types of Cooling Towers

Cooling Towers Definitions & Calculation

Assessment of Cooling Towers & its

The purpose of cooling water systems is to

There are three basic types of cooling water

1. ONCE- THROUGH COOLING WATER SYSTEMS

2. CLOSED RECIRCULATING COOLING WATER SYSTEMS

3. OPEN RECIRCULATING COOLING WATER SYSTEMS

CONCENTRATION RATIO (Cycles of Concentration)

Only pure water, H2O, can evaporate. No other dissolved

Each time the increase in the total amount of

Each 10°F drop in the water temperature across

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