Wooden Cooling Towers – A Sound Choice

Cooling towers are heat rejection devices. These devices extract waste heat into the atmosphere by cooling a water stream to a lower temperature. This type of heat rejection is called evaporative heat rejection. This is because it allows a small portion of water that is being cooled to evaporate. This evaporated air provides a significant proportion of cooling to the rest of the air stream. This principle is utilized on a large scale in the design and manufacture of cooling towers. Common applications for cooling towers are air conditioning, various manufacturing processes, as well as power generation.

The most common cooling towers are made from wood. This is the material that cooling towers were first made from. Wooden cooling towers are designed for durability as well as operational simplicity. The major application of these cooling towers is in power generation in various process industries. Wooden cooling towers utilize treated timber since they are capable of resisting the adverse effects of contaminated water from the processes utilized in various industries.
The major advantages of wooden cooling towers are highest efficiency and lowest operational costs. These are the two primary benefits of utilizing these towers in industry. These wooden cooling towers provide a larger wet surface area for uniform water distribution. Therefore, they are capable of providing an improved heat transfer rate.

Even today, despite the proliferation of FRP cooling towers, wood is a favorite material for the construction of cooling towers. Due to prolonged use, there can be deterioration of the wood used for construction. This can significantly shorten the life of the tower. For example, a tower with a life expectancy of around 25 years could last 10 years or less if wood deterioration is not halted. Wood deterioration causes the cooling tower to become inefficient and could cause excessive replacement costs.

Therefore, steps must be undertaken to minimize wood deterioration. Preventative maintenance is the only way to ensure that wood deterioration does not occur. For the flooded sections of the cooling tower, non oxidizing antimicrobials can be used to control damage due to slime or biological agents. For the non flooded sections, it is important to treat the wood with wood preservatives such as pentachlorophenol or chlorinated paraffin. Periodic spraying with an antifungal can also be achieved on a regular basis.

Wooden cooling tower manufacturers operate in a competitive market, so you should be able to obtain the tower at reasonable rates. Despite the inherent issues that can be a hitch with these towers, these remain popular in the industry due to choice and other factors. Therefore several wooden cooling tower manufacturers provide some of the most durable and robust towers to a wide range of industries.