Performance Evaluation and Design of a New Cooling Tower Spray System for Uniform Water Distribution

ABSTRACT

The performance of wet cooling towers can be improved by installing sprayers that distribute the cooling water uniformly onto the fill while operating at a low pressure head. This paper presents the methodology that was followed to design a new cooling tower spray nozzle. The fluid dynamics of an orifice nozzle, such as the effect of a change in pressure head, spray angle, spray height, orifice diameter, and wall thickness on drop diameter and spray distance, is experimentally investigated, and ultimately a model with which a spray nozzle can be designed is presented. The manufacture and testing of a prototype spray nozzle show that it is possible to enhance the performance of sprayers and thus wet cooling towers by means of the methods presented.