(100a) Deja Vu All over Again: Another Look at Evaporative Cooling
AIChE Spring Meeting and Global Congress on Process Safety
2016
2016 AIChE Spring Meeting and 12th Global Congress on Process Safety
Innovations in Process Research and Development
Innovations in- and Next Gen.- Heat Transfer Technologies II
Tuesday, April 12, 2016 - 10:15am to 10:35am
All chemical processing plants have one common feature: they possess cooling water towers. In fact, cooling water towers are ubiquitous in our 21st Century. Unfortunately, most chemical engineers have a weak understanding of cooling water tower operation --- through no fault of their own, but rather because cooling water technology is generally not taught in universities these days. There are a variety of reasons for this outcome, but the major reason is that labortory-sized and pilot plant-sized cooling water towers are not readily available.
However, we do not need a scale replica of a cooling water tower to understand its operation and to identify those features of its operation most relevant to technology transfer. To gain a thorough understanding of cooling water tower operation, we simply need to employ technology developed centuries ago; i.e., we can simulate cooling water tower operation using evaporative cooling from porous, clay pots.
This presentation discusses evaporative cooling in light of cooling water tower operation. We develop a mathematical model of evaporative cooling and discuss the experimental results that support our model. We relate these results to water tower operation.