Explain with the help of neat diagrams the working of cooling towers in a steam power plant.
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fig 1
Cooling Towers are perhaps the most misunderstood part of a power plant by the General Public.
A lot of people confuse a cooling tower with a Chimney. I remember showing a picture of a cooling tower to a bunch of engineering students and asking them what that structure is. Its a chimney they all replied.I had to then explain them what a cooling tower is and what it does.
Now coming to your question. Simply put a cooling tower cools water.Basically its a huge Heat Exchanger.
Now the question arises. Which water? Where does it come in the cycle of power generation?
The water which is coming to the cooling tower comes from a ‘Condenser’. Now a condenser is a heat exchanger which cools down steam coming from a turbine and converts it into water. This water is different from the cooling tower water. The water flowing in and out of a Cooling Tower is called Cooling water. And the water which cycles between boiler and turbine is called DM Water.
see in the fig 1 have shown how its work.
As can be seen from the above pic a condenser converts steam into water so that it can be pumped back to the boiler where it gets heated up and converts to steam. From the boiler the steam flows into a turbine where it does work and then flows into a condenser. This cycle goes on and on.
For a condenser to convert that Steam into Water this cooling water(CW) comes into picture. The CW flows from CT to condenser where it gets heated up (thereby cooling down steam) and flows back to the CT where again it cools down and flows back to condenser. This is again a cycle which goes on and on.
I hope you now have an idea about Cooling Towers.
Cooling Towers are perhaps the most misunderstood part of a power plant by the General Public.
A lot of people confuse a cooling tower with a Chimney. I remember showing a picture of a cooling tower to a bunch of engineering students and asking them what that structure is. Its a chimney they all replied.I had to then explain them what a cooling tower is and what it does.
Now coming to your question. Simply put a cooling tower cools water.Basically its a huge Heat Exchanger.
Now the question arises. Which water? Where does it come in the cycle of power generation?
The water which is coming to the cooling tower comes from a ‘Condenser’. Now a condenser is a heat exchanger which cools down steam coming from a turbine and converts it into water. This water is different from the cooling tower water. The water flowing in and out of a Cooling Tower is called Cooling water. And the water which cycles between boiler and turbine is called DM Water.
see in the fig 1 have shown how its work.
As can be seen from the above pic a condenser converts steam into water so that it can be pumped back to the boiler where it gets heated up and converts to steam. From the boiler the steam flows into a turbine where it does work and then flows into a condenser. This cycle goes on and on.
For a condenser to convert that Steam into Water this cooling water(CW) comes into picture. The CW flows from CT to condenser where it gets heated up (thereby cooling down steam) and flows back to the CT where again it cools down and flows back to condenser. This is again a cycle which goes on and on.
I hope you now have an idea about Cooling Towers.
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