What are cooling towers? Cooling towers remove waste heat and transfer them to the atmosphere. The waste heat is usually a byproduct of manufacturing. Cooling towers work in two basic ways. They either use water evaporation to remove heat and cool working fluids, or they rely just on air to cool working fluids. They can vary in size. Some are small enough to sit atop a roof, while others are up to 200 metres tall and known as hyperboloid structures. These are usually used for nuclear power, although large industrial plants sometimes use them as well. The smallest cooling towers are used near buildings for air conditioning purposes, discharging heat from indoors into the outdoor atmosphere.
When it comes to the methodology of heat removal or transference, there are multiple types of water cooling towers. One type is dry cooling towers, which use a separating surface between the fluid and air, and do not employ evaporation. Open circuit cooling towers do use evaporation to cool the working fluid. The evaporating and working fluid are usually the same, rather than separately interacting components. Closed loop cooling systems mix these systems except the working fluid is passed through a tube, which protects the fluid from exposure and contamination.
It is important to make sure that the water used for heat transference in evaporative cooling towers is filtered and treated with algaecides and biocides. This can be done through pulsed technology, ultrasonic algae and biofilm control, or chlorine dioxide generation systems. Legionella is the cause of Legionnaires disease in humans, which can often cause sickness and death, and a common source for this bacteria is cooling towers that inadequately treat their water. Not only that, but research has shown that the bacteria can travel three miles from the site of the cooling tower.
When sections of cooling towers break down, they will need to be replaced. In which case, cooling tower replacements constructed out of corrosion proof plastic will probably be desired. These cooling tower replacements do not require protective coatings, and do not rust or peel. These plastic cooling tower replacements are becoming popular since metal towers lack the long term abilities to protect against corrosion outdoors. Another advantage of plastic cooling tower replacements is that they are built to have less parts and be less complex, in order to cut down on maintenance and upkeep problems.