Cooling Tower
Definition
The open evaporative device that provides the final heat-rejection step, cooling condenser water by evaporating a small fraction of it to the atmosphere.
Warm condenser water is distributed across fill media while air is drawn through, evaporating a small fraction and carrying away about 970 BTU for each pound vaporized. Evaporating about 1 percent of the recirculating water cools the bulk water by roughly 10 degrees Fahrenheit. The tower is the open, exposed, chemically hostile system where scale, corrosion, biology, and solids converge and where water treatment matters most.
Related concepts
Chiller · Condenser water loop · Drift
How it connects
- this drives Cycles of Concentration
- this enables Heat Transfer
- Wet-bulb temperature measures this
- Chiller requires this
Part of The Blueprint of Water · 🛠️ operations