Combined Wet/Dry Cooling Towers of Cell-Type Construction

This article provides a general picture of the state of technical developments with respect to wet/dry cooling towers. More stringent environmental protection requirements led to the introduction of the hybrid cooling tower, which effectively suppresses detrimental plume formation at an efficiency level comparable to that of the wet cooling tower. It is explained that the attainable exhaust air state, in conjunction with the ambient air state, is the only possible basis for a decision in order to obtain both a low-priced design and proper functioning. The cell-type construction, including material selection and automatic operation of the recooling system, is described in detail. In the last section, the fluid cooling tower, designed for a closed circuit, is presented as a combination of the essential elements of wet and dry cooling technology. When the ambient temperature is low, the fluid cooling tower can also be operated as a dry cooling tower, i.e., without water consumption or plume production. Both hybrid and fluid cooling towers of the cell type conform particularly well to the more stringent environmental protection requirements and to the standard of operational reliability set for recooling systems. It is therefore to be expected that use of these types will become more widespread.