Concrete Cooling Tower Benefits
The most obvious advantage of concrete towers is their structural permanence and architectural flexibility. Properly designed concrete structures are nearly permanent with their mass making them highly resistant to weather events. They are unaffected by most chemicals, heat and ultra-violet exposure. Concrete is also inert to the water environment present, and helps to minimize radiated sound levels.
CCS concrete designs are flexible in overall footprint, allowing the tower to be constructed in tight quarters near other structures like the chiller plant or high-traffic areas, often saving in piping and pumping costs. The exterior can be styled and finished to match most building architectures.
Concrete designs can also be specialized to provide other functions, such as venting of parking garage fumes, or fogging and plume control. Drift eliminators can allow the tower to be placed near pedestrian or vehicular traffic.
CCS Concrete-FRP Hybrid Cooling Towers
For a lower-cost concrete solution that is also easier to service, concrete-FRP hybrid towers provide most of the structural and architectural advantages of a concrete exterior structure, while allowing the use of our exclusive FRP Open Structure internally. Expensive-to-form overhead concrete members, such as fill and roof deck beams and roof deck, can be replaced with structural FRP that is less expensive and easier to install. This reduces time and costs in construction, improves serviceability, and still provides the architectural advantages, location flexibility, and reduced noise characteristics of concrete construction.
FRP components utilized in a concrete-FRP hybrid tower include:
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FRP fan decks and fanstacks
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Fan deck and distribution supports
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Internal columns
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Fill supports and ladders
Building Concrete Towers to Specification
In many areas of the world, concrete can be a lower-cost option than other materials for the tower structure. However, dependent on location, quality of construction and materials can also be more difficult to control. Regardless of where the tower is built, it is important that the design specifications be adhered to, and the construction management and quality assurance process be carefully managed. CCS has substantial concrete tower experience, including managing local concrete providers to ensure designs and quality standards are held throughout the construction process.
CCS Concrete Tower Design Options
CCS' standard distribution system utilizes a large nozzle opening that is up to 1.5 inches in diameter. The head pressure required to operate the nozzle spray pattern is a nominal 48 inches. This nozzle and distribution system is designed to accept flows of up to 30% over design. Crossflow designs can also utilize our patented sparger distribution system, for uniform distribution across the fill even in reduced flow conditions, for greater efficiency.
CCS' Multi-Flo™ staged distribution system can also be incorporated in counterflow concrete tower designs. By adding Multi-Flo™, the distribution system is further optimized by adjusting the number of spray nozzles, their capacity, and their placement to best match performance requirements. Tower performance can be tuned to deliver greater energy efficiency, especially when widely varying flows are expected. Turndown capabilities can be as low as 30-50% for a wider range of operation. By being able to efficiently operate the tower at low flow or reduced pump operation, considerable pumping cost can be saved.
Our concrete towers can also utilize various fill options, from PVC film to ceramic tile. These options allow the tower to be designed for any water quality and temperature of operation.
