Coolingtower? Help!!

[Mekaeel]

This is the idea I got from Cybervic if I understood him correctly, Wikus please correct me if I misunderstood. Do you think it will work?

Here is a crude sketch:

excellent idea.think i should work on something like this to assist my chiller when it cant cope

 

[herkie]

I had a small dairy product shop/factory and have built some 'cooling towers' or whatever we want to call them. I used two averaged sized car radiators and mounted them horisontally in a rectangular covered frame. About 200mm apart.(One above the other)
A strong fan(I used 2 x electric car fans) is mounted at the top to extract air upwards. This contraption was standing on 400mm legs in a 200mm deep tray. Normal micro jets(Garden type) is mounted above the top radiator spraying downwards. The water drips into the bottom tray from where it is pumped back up to the micro jets. The two radiators is connected in series and the cooling water is pumped through the radiators back to some kind of heat exchanger.(Plastic pipes coiled in the sump will do) This works quite well if the water pumped through the radiators/pipoes and the water flow over the coiled pipes has good flow/movement.
I used to pasteurise 300 litres of milk at a time and heated the milk to 82 degrees and then cooled the same milk down to 20 degrees in about two and a half hours time. I f you are prepared to do it using this hard way you will definetely be able to cool your tank. Your temps are high but you also have very low humidity and that will be your best friewnd.
Give me a call if you need a better explanation.

 

[Warr7207]

I had a small dairy product shop/factory and have built some 'cooling towers' or whatever we want to call them. I used two averaged sized car radiators and mounted them horisontally in a rectangular covered frame. About 200mm apart.(One above the other)
A strong fan(I used 2 x electric car fans) is mounted at the top to extract air upwards. This contraption was standing on 400mm legs in a 200mm deep tray. Normal micro jets(Garden type) is mounted above the top radiator spraying downwards. The water drips into the bottom tray from where it is pumped back up to the micro jets. The two radiators is connected in series and the cooling water is pumped through the radiators back to some kind of heat exchanger.(Plastic pipes coiled in the sump will do) This works quite well if the water pumped through the radiators/pipoes and the water flow over the coiled pipes has good flow/movement.
I used to pasteurise 300 litres of milk at a time and heated the milk to 82 degrees and then cooled the same milk down to 20 degrees in about two and a half hours time. I f you are prepared to do it using this hard way you will definetely be able to cool your tank. Your temps are high but you also have very low humidity and that will be your best friewnd.
Give me a call if you need a better explanation.

This must have looked insane

got any pics

 

[Mtroboer]

excellent idea.think i should work on something like this to assist my chiller when it cant cope

Hi Mekaeel, I agree with Cybervic that moving the fan(or two) to the side blowing directly onto the spilling water will have a much greater effect, I cant wait for the weekend to try this one out!

 

[Mtroboer]

I had a small dairy product shop/factory and have built some 'cooling towers' or whatever we want to call them. I used two averaged sized car radiators and mounted them horisontally in a rectangular covered frame. About 200mm apart.(One above the other)
A strong fan(I used 2 x electric car fans) is mounted at the top to extract air upwards. This contraption was standing on 400mm legs in a 200mm deep tray. Normal micro jets(Garden type) is mounted above the top radiator spraying downwards. The water drips into the bottom tray from where it is pumped back up to the micro jets. The two radiators is connected in series and the cooling water is pumped through the radiators back to some kind of heat exchanger.(Plastic pipes coiled in the sump will do) This works quite well if the water pumped through the radiators/pipoes and the water flow over the coiled pipes has good flow/movement.
I used to pasteurise 300 litres of milk at a time and heated the milk to 82 degrees and then cooled the same milk down to 20 degrees in about two and a half hours time. I f you are prepared to do it using this hard way you will definetely be able to cool your tank. Your temps are high but you also have very low humidity and that will be your best friewnd.
Give me a call if you need a better explanation.

Hi Herkie, ja I think this will also be a brilliant idea, maybe mount a small offroad bike radiator into a fishtank, is just going to take a lot of refinement but I believe this will deliver awesome results!

 

[Mtroboer]

Hi Herkie, ja I think this will also be a brilliant idea, maybe mount a small offroad bike radiator into a fishtank, is just going to take a lot of refinement but I believe this will deliver awesome results!

Uh-oh what about copper, or other metals within the radiator that will contaminate the water?!

 

[shane]

cooling tower

 

[shane]

cooling tower

Hi guys,
The diagram above is a bit off topic as this is an industrial cooling tower but it will shed some light on the workings of a cooling tower. The media in the cooling tower is there to increase surface area for the water and so also to increase contact time between water and air.As the water is flowing through the media the air is being drawn upwards and because of the surface area of the media a small amount of evaporation occurs which in turn cools the water down.
Hope this helps.
Cheers

 

[herkie]

Uh-oh what about copper, or other metals within the radiator that will contaminate the water?!

No copper gets in touch with any tank water. Read carefully and you will see the water is transported through a normal clear plastic pipe as used in 99% of our tanks. The clear pipe is coiled in the sump or any other water container connected to the tank water flow with a good /strong water flow.

 

[herkie]

This must have looked insane

got any pics

It did look weird I must admit. HOWEVER I challenge all chiller manufacturers/suppliers to supply a chiller that costs less than 4 times the price of this contraption and can chill the same amount of liquid from 80deg to any acceptable temp for our marine systems in double the time.

 

[seank]

It did look weird I must admit. HOWEVER I challenge all chiller manufacturers/suppliers to supply a chiller that costs less than 4 times the price of this contraption and can chill the same amount of liquid from 80deg to any acceptable temp for our marine systems in double the time.