Economic factors of Dry-Wet Cooling Towers

Comtemporary dry-wet design efforts and economic studies are reviewed and promising configurations are delineated. The basic accounting scheme and all relevant parameters necessary for comprehensive total cost calculations are identified and associated with typical values. Existing thermodynamic and psychrometric models for dry towers, wet towers, turbines, and condensers are then combined with the economic information to derive the total economies of various dry-wet tower configurations. Example comprehensive results for four parallel air-path and one series air-path cooling tower are included. It appears that parallel air-path configurations offer the most economical design for a dry-wet tower; dry-wet cooling towers also appear economically competitive with wet towers in some areas with high water costs.