The Basics of Wet Cooling Towers

Water cooling towers are some of the most essential pieces of equipment for commercial and industrial buildings today; because of the cost-effective and renewable technology that has been developed for cooling towers, countless industrial companies are able to function continuously. Although the most general definition of a cooling tower is something that removes "waste" heat from any industrial process or air conditioning condensor, wet cooling towers -- also sometimes called open circuit cooling towers -- are a little bit more complicated than that.

Here is a brief outline of how a wet cooling tower works, and why it's such an important piece of industrial equipment:

Wet cooling towers use water to cool machinery that heats up (hence the "wet" part of the name) and these towers use the natural process of evaporation to cool machinery. These towers rely on an exchange of heat between the machinery, the water in the tower, and the air passing through the tower.

When a process or machine part begins to heat up, water in the cooling tower passes through a labyrinth in the structure, and as it passes through, it absorbs excess heat. This warm water then comes into direct contact with cool air passing through the tower; the direct interaction causes the warmest water droplets to evaporate into the air, which continues passing through the tower and out into the atmosphere. The water that's left becomes cool again, and can be pumped back through the system to absorb heat again.

Although wet cooling towers absorb "waste" heat and technically produce "emissions," it's important to realize that this "waste" is simply a byproduct of a system process, and that the "emissions" are simply heated water droplets -- not at all like the harmful carbon dioxide emissions that are produced from burning fuel.

So now we're asking for your input -- what questions do you still have about wet cooling towers? Call us or contact a rep in your area to get the answers.