2 replies to this topic

[djack77494]

Michael,
The simple answer is that a cooling tower is a major expense. Besides the tower itself, you need water treatment upstream, chemical addition systems, some analytical chemistry capabilities, Pumps, basins, fans, packing, controls, and lots of plot area. Then there's blowdown and waste water treatment.

While that may sound bad, you get quite a bit in return. Much smaller shell & tube heat exchangers for similar duties. Lower product temperatures are possible. I'd say less impact due to weather changes, though that is arguable.

So, what to do. I'd say plan on a cooling water system if decent quality water is available and you have many coolers in your facility. Else, go with air coolers.
Doug

[HGalaviz]

While all above is true, if you spend time on the cooling towers and or the fin fans you will see the big difference between the two.
people these days seems to think that bigger is better. I have been in the cooling tower and fin fan business for 25 years now, and i have been all over the country working on the two.
From my experience The fin fan is a step above the cooling tower. The fin fan requires less space, no water for cooling (a plus on that) and easy to maintain. As far as the cooling part, that's even better. Think of them like this, if you was to open the hood of a car you would see the engine (which is the heat source) and the radiator (which is the cooling source). They both do the same as any refinery, you have the engine which is the production unit and the radiator which is the cooling unit. Now, when you look at the cooling tower its bigger in size which 93% of the cooling towers are either redwood or douglas fir. About ten years or so the have mastered fiberglass, it is a better product for the condition of a cooling tower with the water issue which will rot all wood and algae growth. The main issue with fiberglass is that you have to have a good crew assemble the tower and we all know that these days its hard to find people that really care about there job and have pride in it. With the assembly of a fiberglass tower you have to torque all connecting hardware to 19ft lbs. And that is almost impossible when building one, again people who care.....
If the attaching hardware is correct it will crack the columns, one crack at 1" long will grow to 2-4' crack within 10 mins, fiberglass is strong but like anything else it has a weak spot.
Wood, well we all know that woods worse enemy is water and sun light. Rot or algae which will cause pocket rot, that will eat the tower up from the inside out, you will never know the pocket rot is there until the tower collapse.
I could go on for days and give millions reasons why a fin fan would be a better choice, a tower requires a lot of maintenance, not only the tower itself but the water treatment equipment and so on.
Fin Fan require less maintenance just a quarterly inspection maybe a belt replacement ounce a year or so, grease the bearing during inspection, and during each shut down of the unit maybe a good cleaning of the coils and she will be good as new.

Sorry for the long reply, but if you ask someone there opinion on cooling towers are fin fans be careful who you ask there is a lot of people out there that can tell you how to fix them but only a few that can tell you how to repair them.