The Hilton Bench Top Cooling Tower has been designed to meet the demand for a compact cooling tower which clearly demonstrates all the processes found in a full size forced draught cooling tower and behaves in a representative manner.
Supplied with standard column B, a number of additional columns are available as optional extras to cope with a wide variety of educational needs in the study of Thermodynamics, Heat and Mass Transfer, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning.
Warm water is pumped from the load tank to the column cap where its temperature is measured. The water is uniformly distributed over the top packing deck and, as it spreads over the plates, a large thin film of water is exposed to the air stream. During its downward passage through the packing, the water is cooled, largely by the evaporation of a small portion of the total flow. The cooled water falls from the lowest packing deck into the basin, from where it flows past a thermocouple and into the load tank where it is re-heated for re-circulation.
Due to evaporation, the level of the water in the load tank slowly falls. This causes the float operated needle valve to open and transfer water from the make-up tank into the load tank. Under steady conditions, the rate at which the water leaves the make-up tank is equal to the rate of evaporation, plus any small airborne droplets in the air discharge
Air from the atmosphere, pre-heated by external means if desired, enters the fan at a rate which is controlled by the intake damper setting. The fan discharges into the distribution chamber and the air passes wet and dry bulb thermocouples before it enters the packed column. As the air stream flows through the packings, its moisture content increases and the water is cooled. On leaving the top of the column the air passes through the droplet arrester, which traps most of the entrained droplets and returns them to the packings. The air is then discharged to the atmosphere via the air measuring orifice and further wet and dry bulb thermocouples. All of the foregoing may be observed through the transparent structure of the column.
All temperatures are indicated by a digital temperature indicator and thermocouple selector switch.
