Cooling tower ton

Definition

A unit equal to about 15,000 BTU per hour, representing the total heat a cooling tower must reject, which is the building load plus the heat added by the compressor.

The compressor adds roughly 3,000 BTU per hour per ton (about 25 percent) of work-derived heat on top of the building load. A 1,000-ton chiller therefore rejects about 15,000,000 BTU per hour at the tower. All evaporation, blowdown, and tower sizing calculations must use the cooling tower heat load, not the chiller tonnage alone.

Related concepts

Cooling tower mass balance · Tons of refrigeration · Cooling tower evaporation

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Part of The Blueprint of Water · 📏 measurement