Water Consumption of Cooling Towers in Different Climatic Zones of the U. S.

Cooling towers are widely used across a range of industries and represent the largest reuse of water in industrial and commercial applications. While continually recycling water, cooling towers loose significant inventory through evaporation and blowdown.

The local climate strongly affects the efficiency of a cooling tower and its water consumption. This paper discusses the performance of cooling towers in different climatic zone of the U.S. considering the seasonal variations of outdoor air temperature, wind speed and solar radiation. The analyses are carried out with the Sargent & Lundy’s software suite UHS which simulates the transient heat and mass transfers occurring in cooling tower/basin systems.