Category Archives: Cooling Towers

This article will help you understand Common Cooling Tower Problems & Solutions so you can better care for your commercial or industrial property. Good business starts with a good budget that includes keeping the overhead down. Part of every business is having a clean and comfortable place for customers and clients to do business in. Large commercial properties feature cooling towers and chillers that must work together to keep these spaces cool and comfortable during the hot parts of the year. It is important to know the common cooling tower problems & solutions to help keep your budget under control.

Cooling Tower Problems

Buildings that feature cooling towers must keep track of and control the four major types of water treatment issues. These are biological contamination, corrosion, fouling and scaling. All of these problems reduce the cooling tower’s ability to be as energy efficient as designed. This means they take more electricity to do the same job. This raises your overhead and makes the cost of doing business higher.

Biological Contamination – Cooling towers by nature are places that are hot and humid. Along with the common and plentiful nutrients that most water sources contain it is an ideal place for the growth of unwanted biological growth, such as bacteria. These contaminants aren’t good for people, and are worse for the efficiency of your cooling tower. This comes in the form of biofilm, which is a build up on the internal components of your cooling tower. Even very thin layers can reduce the thermal efficiency dramatically.

Corrosion – Cooling towers and chillers that leak can many times be attributed to cooling systems that are ignored. This can be especially prevalent in cooling towers that use closed loop systems. When the air, sodium, and other chemicals that are found in our water supplies are left unchecked to run through a cooling tower system they eat away at the metal and will lead to leaks.

Fouling – Fouling can occur at different areas of your cooling tower system. The fill is one of the prime locations for fouling to occur. Fouling is the clogging of cooling surfaces or pipes with debris, dirt, and dust. When water cannot make it into and pass through the fill as designed, the air is not cooled properly. This means that the system has to work longer to achieve the same results. Which means it is using more electricity.

Scaling – The primary role of cooling towers are to exchange heat from the chiller or industrial process. This means that build up of minerals in the water can create layers that rob efficiency. The different types of minerals, like calcium, that are part of the high heat system break down and are deposited on the cooling tower heat exchange surfaces. Scaling must be removed or operating costs will increase.

Cooling Tower Solutions

Every cooling tower’s set of problems will be different. The location’s water source, age of the cooling tower, and even the air being used to cool the water varies by location. This means cooling tower maintenance and water treatment is a progressive and customized undertaking. There is no “one size fits all” solution for cooling tower maintenance. Choosing a cooling tower maintenance company that helps control all 4 of the performance diminishing problems will help achieve lower operating costs.

Treating Biological Contamination

The first and last step after you have found that a cooling tower is contaminated with biological growth is to collect a water sample, and it is the last item of business too. Here we will look at  the overall order of how you should go about treating a cooling tower system of a biological contamination. The contamination is dangerous to the health of people in the building and near the site as the contaminants can cause respiratory infections. It is treated by shocking the system with chlorine over a series of 48 hours in various concentrations followed by a complete flush and refill with new water.

To prevent future contamination all leaks should be eliminated from the cooling water system. A sample is taken at the end of the cleaning procedure and sent for analysis.  If the test comes back positive for L. pneumohphila the chlorination of the water and sampling must be repeated. This is why companies should only hire experienced cooling tower maintenance companies so they avoid unnecessary downtime.

Preventing Corrosion

There are 3 ways that corrosion can be controlled, epoxy coatings, adding orthophosphate to the water treatment, or raising the pH of the water up close to 9.0.  A delicate balance of these approaches can help extend the life of your cooling tower and the individual components.  When the pH is too high cooling tower water cannot be treated as effectively with chlorine treatments that help control the biological contaminants. Orthophospahte does help prevent corrosion as well but it can act as a “fertilizer” for some types micrbiological species.  Quality chiller tube coatings and coatings for the cooling tower help protect the metal from carbon steel corrosion.

Treating Fouling

Fouling in cooling towers causes diminished cooling tower performance which leads to inflated energy consumption.  Fouling does this when debris or biological matter prevents the even distribution of water through the system in tubes, nozzles, fill, or other areas where water needs to have unimpeded movement. To treat fouling chlorine can be used, fill can be changed, and nozzles or other hardware can be swapped out for new parts to recover the performance the cooling tower was designed with.

Removing Scaling

Scaling is a thin coating of minerals or chemicals which insulates the tubes and prevents effective heat transfer, can increase back pressure, and also restric the unit’s generation. Calcium in the makeup water is the main issue that can lead to scaling and should be monitored and treated when necessary. Tube coatings which are made from polymers are one of the ways scaling is prevented. These coatings provide a surface which is conductive to heat to maintain performance but do not give calcium a place to stick to to build up. If there is significant scaling there are cleaning procedures which will remove the scaling, which is a perfect time to use chiller tube coatings to prevent scaling in the future.

4 Keys To Water Treatment

• Make sure your system is consistently controlled for biofilms. It is easier and less expensive to keep it clean, than getting it cleaned.
• Get your bleach fresh, keep it in the shade, and make sure you test it at every delivery.
• Use tests which challenge your assumptions about the variables in your cooling tower with labs for verification and adjust accordingly
• Constant monitoring is the only way to keep on top of your cooling tower scaling, corrosion, and biological growth. Monitor regularly!

Water treatment along with chiller & cooling tower maintenance that involves cleaning all of the heat exchange surfaces is the way to keep your commercial HVAC system operating properly.

Cooling Tower Maintenance & Repair

If you have a business or property that has cooling towers in the Phoenix metro area All Kote Lining, Inc. has the training, tools, and team you.  We understand how cooling towers function in the arid Arizona desert and how the makeup water affects the cooling towers and chillers. When you need cooling tower repair, maintenance, or chiller work All Kote can save you money and get the job done quickly. Give us a call today! 480-966-4446.

 

If you are searching for “Cooling Tower Corrosion Protection” you are probably trying to understand the ways you can make your cooling tower system last longer for your commercial or industrial property.  This article is designed to help you understand why cooling towers are especially prone to corrosion, and what you can do to about it.

Cooling towers are a vital part of a lot of businesses and industrial processes. They provide cooling for chiller systems and help remove heat from fabrication processes.  Coolant in many applications comes in the form of water, and when combined with extreme heat it creates an environment that is prone to corroding metal.  To extend the life of cooling towers, and their components, coatings are applied to various elements as a barrier between water and chemicals and bare metal.

What is corrosion?

Corrosion is a set of forces which have a natural tendency to electrolytically or chemically react with metals, when given the proper circumstances and opportunity. The most prevalent and common of these forces is Oxygen. With oxygen being the most common element on the planet oxidation is a serious concern for metal.  Oxidation is a reference to the way oxygen interacts with various compounds or elements and the term rust describes the way that oxygen interacts with iron. Iron is the basic ingredient used in the production of carbon steel which is very common in cooling tower components.

Regional Effects on Corrosion

The degree of oxidation and corrosion on carbon steel varies by degree based on the heat and humidity of a given geographical region. Places which are cool and dry haven’t the same predisposition for corrosion as somewhere that is humid and hot. It is in these hot or humid areas which corrosion must be prepared for prevented.

Atmospheric Effects on Corrosion

Today’s air conditions include an ever increasing corrosion atmosphere which is caused by considerable increases in industrialization.  The coatings that we used years ago which would be considered rudimentary by today’s standards functioned adequately with air that was more “fresh”.  With air quality changing and usually towards a higher content of gaseous byproducts ongoing research and development is necessary to keep the coatings used to prevent corrosion effective.

Cooling Tower Conditions and Corrosion

The purpose of a cooling tower is to take hot water from industrial or HVAC processes which produce hot water and cool it back down to be used again to sustain the process. As we know the combination of heat and humidity is the perfect conditions for corrosion to occur. In addition to heat and humidity cooling towers also include evaporation which causes an relentless flow of flow against the metal components in the cooling tower. When water stagnates around steel it actually develops a protective layer of oxidation which prevents aggressive corrosion. In the case of cooling towers the constant flow of air, water, and evaporation continually dissolves this film and perpetually eats away at new metal material.

Quality Cooling Tower Coatings

To help prevent corrosion and the need to replace components or entire cooling towers which are susceptible to corrosion coatings such as Belzona 1321 are used to centrifugal pumps, vacuum pumps, valves, heat exchangers, impellers, pipes, nozzles, water boxes, and much more. Benefits of using a coating like Belzona is that it makes maintenance more simple, cuts down on the need for spare parts, helps protect against corrosion, and therefore extends the life of cooling towers and chillers. Let All Kote Lining take care of your cooling towers the right way.  We specialize in maintaining the equipment you have to make it operate more efficiently and last longer.

It can be applied to various elements in the cooling tower system by using shimming, bonding, injecting and more application methods. It bonds aggressively to a wide range of substrates and as a multipurpose polymeric coating it does not corrode and provides exceptional resistance against a wide range of chemicals. If you have questions about how to prevent corrosion in cooling towers or would like to schedule cooling tower corrosion protection please call 480-966-4446.

 

This article covers “The Importance of Drift Eliminators“.  Understanding the components that make your cooling tower work helps understand the required maintenance. Regular cooling tower maintenance cuts down on wasted water, energy usage, and extends the life of your equipment.  Cooling Towers are complex devices that utilize many various components to achieve their cooling functionality. From Fills and nozzles there is a symphony of parts being played out as the natural process of evaporation is synthesized. The process of evaporation synthesis takes a ‘team effort’ so making sure all of your components work in concert is key to getting the most out of you towers. One of the vital components of cooling towers is the drift eliminator. This entry is going to briefly profile the drift eliminator in order to give more clarity to the picture of cooling tower functionality.

What Are Drift Eliminators?

Drift eliminators greatly reduce water loss in cooling towers by minimizing the ability for water droplets to get caught up in the air being discharged from the cooling tower. They achieve this reduction in water loss by producing directional change to the air flow throughout the tower to interrupt the upward motion of the water droplets. Water is fundamental to the functioning of a cooling tower reducing water loss can turn into great savings. Making sure you have high quality drift eliminators installed will set your cooling tower up for long lasting and efficient service and set you up for major savings over an extended period of time.

Every cooling tower loses a portion of water through evaporation into the environment during operation. Generally when cooling towers are working properly this loss is in the form of water vapor which is pure and poses no harm to the environment. In contrast loss that has mineral and chemicals from the cooling tower is drift. This undesirable loss of water is sometimes caused by the fast moving air carrying it out of the cooling tower. Treated water which is common in cooling towers can in fact pose a negative impact on the surrounding environment.

How Drift Eliminators Work

Drift eliminators are designed to prevent large water droplets from escaping via the cooling tower air stream.  They do this by forcing the droplets caught in the stream of air to causing a change in direction which reduces their velocity. They are directed into the blade walls and run back down into the tower.  When drift eliminators are properly installed and maintained they prevent the treated water from escaping the cooling tower. This saves operators money on treating additional water and helps mitigate damage to the environment. The best drive eliminators keep drive losses under .001%.

Professional Drift Eliminator Maintenance

Cooling Towers can be massive and keeping them running at a high level of efficiency takes a lot of work and maintenance. That amount of maintenance that is needed can actually be quite intimidating if you aren’t approaching it from a place of knowledge and understanding of your tower’s maintenance needs and how it is supposed to work. Having all of your components well maintained and in like new condition will allow you and your facility to enjoy the effects of a properly functioning cooling tower for years and possibly decades to come. If you have a cooling tower in Arizona and you have experienced excessive loss through drift, or you just want to have your cooling tower tuned up, please call All Kote Lining, Inc. at 480-966-4446.

 

Cooling towers function by utilizing coolant fluids which must be retained and recycled through the system. This is true for both mechanical and natural draft cooling tower technologies. A lot of people think of concrete as the superman of building materials which is just impervious, which is not true.  Concrete is chemically more similar to ceramic materials in terms of chemistry.  Ceramic products such as fired pottery or dishware are considered “vitreous” materials. Whereas concrete is a sub-vitreous construction material which is more porous which allows a degree of water permeability. Being a bit like a hard sponge the dried capillaries of concrete contribute to concrete’s permeability. Concrete cooling tower basin repair extends the life of the cooling tower and keeps operating costs more affordable.

Water Retention in Reinforced Concrete

When concrete elements are initially installed the design and concrete consistency play a major role in the long term durability of your concrete cooling tower water basin. When leaks are found or concrete is experiencing degradation concrete epoxy coatings can be applied to cooling tower water basins to help protect the concrete and extend the life of the cooling tower.

• The concrete basins in cooling towers should include the following details which will help manage issues with water retention and durability.
• Cement should be ordered with low water-to-cement ratios. This means that as the concrete dries there will be less shrinkage due to water evaporation.
• Conform to ACI-350 standards for embedded reinforced steel which will help restrain cracking from material volume shrinkage.
• Utilize formwork systems which do not include full wall section thicknesses.
• Minimize the quantity of construction joints or proposed joins involved in the formed edges of the basin.
• Institute a quality assurance and quality control phase in your concrete construction project.

Concrete Cooling Tower Water Basin Defects

Significant factors that lead leaks in concrete water basins in cooling towers are:

• Misplaced steel bars inside the concrete mass which fail to control volume shrinkage.
• Unconsolidated concrete which was not poured right and provides a direct conduit through the concrete.
• Inadequately sealed concrete which leads to the corrosion or the embedded steel.
• Absences or misplacement of water stop glands which prevent water from passing through expansion joints.

Leak Mitigation in Cooling Tower Basins

A lot of times cooling tower owners think that waterproofing is a one and done deal when the cooling tower is first constructed. There are both positive and negative side waterproofing measures which help prevent leaks and protect concrete. Positive side generally includes the waterproofing measures which are done before the cooling tower has been placed in service. Negative side waterproofing usually refers to coatings and repairs which are done after the cooling tower is in use or even when it is on-line.

Concrete Cooling Tower Basin Repair

There are different approaches for the repair of concrete cooling tower water basins. The appropriate repair will depend on the size of the leak and the amount of water leaking from your cooling tower. These repair approaches include:

• Coatings
• Grouting
• Flow rerouting
• Surface & Joint Seals
• Membranes

Coatings

Epoxy coatings are a common and effective method for repairing concrete in cooling towers. The application involves the epoxy coating being bonded to the concrete surfaces of the cooling tower after proper cleaning and preparation. Specially designed epoxy coatings are used for these environment which are designed to cope with the constant presence of the chemicals used in cooling tower water programs.

Grouting

Grouting, much like we imagine in tile installation, involves injecting water-stopping materials around or behind structures which forms a barrier for process fluids and water. Generally these materials solidify to be anywhere from completely rigid to semi-gelatinous. This means that depending on the size of the gap or crack grouting can be flexible to follow expansion or rock solid to provide added structural rigidity.

Flow Rerouting

In emergency situations when there is heavy flow using re-circulating pumps or sand-bags.  This is due during monsoon conditions or when process fluid surges crest. In a lot of cases the leakage cannot be stopped until the pressures are lowered after bypass piping is installed into the joints or cracks in concrete members.

Surface & Joint Seals

Surfaces that experience cracking or joints that aren’t holding water can be repaired by installing materials over or in these areas. The materials used are highly specific to this application and must abe able to transmit and absorb loads and energy. This includes any flow or movement during the operation of the cooling tower.

Membranes

Membranes are typically part of positive side concrete cooling tower basin waterproofing as they require a very high level of quality assurance. These systems can be both unbounded and bonded sheet systems that feature welded seams designed to contain the process water.

Concrete Cooling Tower Basin Repair

All Kote Lining Inc. offers service valleywide in Phoenix, AZ. We specialize in the evaluation of cooling tower maintenance including the repair of concrete cooling tower basins. From the nozzles, through the system, and back to the basin we can maintain, repair, and replace any element on your cooling tower to refurbish your cooling tower and extend its working lifespan.  Properly servicing and repairing your cooling tower will save companies from inflated operating costs from having to prematurely replace cooling tower systems.

For more information about how we can help repair and extend the life of your cooling towers:
Call All Kote Lining, Inc at 480-966-4446.