Industrial cooling: questions and answers
212 questions that plant owners, design engineers and operators actually ask us about cooling towers, chillers, absorption chillers, dry coolers, pump stations and controls — with short answers and links to detailed articles.
Choosing a system
- What should I choose: a cooling tower, a dry cooler or a chiller?
- What is the difference between a chiller and a cooling tower?
- Can you supply a locally made replacement for an imported cooling tower, evaporative condenser or chiller?
- Dry cooler or cooling tower: which one?
- What matters more: purchase price or cost of ownership?
Cooling towers
- How does a cooling tower work, and why does it cool water?
- How cold can a cooling tower get the water in summer? Can I get 20 °C?
- What is the wet-bulb temperature, and why does a cooling tower depend on it?
- What is the difference between a closed and an open cooling tower, and which should I choose?
- Why doesn't my cooling tower reach its design temperature in summer?
Chillers
- When do you need a chiller and when is a cooling tower enough?
- Which is better: an air-cooled or a water-cooled chiller?
- How do you calculate the required chiller capacity?
- How much capacity margin should you add, and why is an oversized chiller a problem?
- How long does an industrial chiller last?
Absorption chillers
- How does an absorption chiller work?
- When is an absorption chiller cheaper to run than an electric chiller?
- From what capacity does an absorption chiller make sense, and what is the payback?
- Is it true that an absorption chiller needs no electricity?
- What heat can an absorption chiller run on: steam, hot water, gas, exhaust?
Dry coolers
- What is a dry cooler, and how is it different from a cooling tower?
- What temperature will a dry cooler deliver in summer? Can I get 27 °C when it is 30 °C outside?
- Can I run a dry cooler on plain water instead of glycol?
- What glycol concentration does a dry cooler need?
- How does an adiabatic dry cooler work, and what systems are there?
Pump stations
- How many pumps does a pump station need, and how much standby?
- Should the pumps have a variable frequency drive or a soft starter?
- Primary-secondary or variable primary flow: which scheme should I choose?
- Does having many pump stations in the scheme make the system less reliable?
- What is a glycol make-up station for?
Controls
- Why do we need a plant master panel if every chiller has its own controller?
- Can several cooling towers be controlled from one control cabinet?
- Which protocol should connect the plant to the BMS: Modbus or BACnet?
- How do cooling tower, pump or chiller panel signals reach the control room?
- Can the flow switch be wired to the plant controller and passed to the chiller over Modbus?
Design and installation
- Can I buy cooling tower spare parts separately?
- What data do you need to select a cooling tower or a chiller?
- How often do a cooling tower and a chiller need maintenance?
- What drawings and data do you give the design engineer?
- What are the manufacturing lead times?
Water and winter
- How much water does a cooling tower use?
- Does a cooling tower need water treatment if the make-up comes from the city supply?
- Is Legionella a risk in a cooling tower, and how do you control it?
- What is cooling tower blowdown, and where does the water go?
- What are cycles of concentration, and how many should we run?
Supply and service
- Do you have equipment and spare parts in stock?
- Do you make spare parts for imported cooling towers and evaporative condensers — BAC, Evapco, Decsa?
- Do you build air-cooled heat exchangers (fin-fan coolers) for oil and gas sites?
- Do you make modular (containerised) cooling plants?
- Which documents come with the equipment, and where is it made?
Need advice on cooling?
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