Cooling tower

Cooling towers are evaporative coolers used for cooling water or other working medium to near the ambient wet-bulb air temperature. Cooling towers use evaporation of water to reject heat from processes such as cooling the circulating water used in oil refineries and power plants, building cooling, or chemical reactions.

There are three types of cooling towers:

Natural draft

which utilizes buoyancy via a tall chimney. Warm, moist air naturally rises due to the density differential to the dry, cooler outside air. Counterintuitively, more moist air is less dense than drier air at the same temperature and pressure. This moist air buoyancy produces a current of air through the tower.
Mechanical draft, which uses power driven fan motors to force or draw air through the tower.
Induced draft: A mechanical draft tower with a fan at the discharge which pulls air through tower. The fan induces hot moist air out the discharge. This produces low entering and high exiting air velocities, reducing the possibility of recirculation in which discharged air flows back into the air intake. This fan/fill arrangement is also known as draw-through.

Forced draft:

A mechanical draft tower with a blower type fan at the intake. The fan forces air into the tower, creating high entering and low exiting air velocities. The low exiting velocity is much more susceptible to recirculation. With the fan on the air intake, the fan is more susceptible to complications due to freezing conditions. Another disadvantage is that a forced draft design typically requires more motor horsepower than an equivalent induced draft design. The forced draft benefit is its ability to work with high static pressure. They can be installed in more confined spaces and even in some indoor situations. This fan/fill geometry is also known as blow-through.

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