The Marley Cooling Tower Company

James R Houx, Jr

Ohler L Kinney, Jr

Gerald D Fritz

Richard D Landon

Paul A Lindahl, Jr

A vacuum-formed fill sheet for water cooling towers is provided with structure for contact with adjacent sheets for maintaining proper spacing around a perimeter of the sheets as well as between interior cooling zones formed within the sheet. Top marginal edge portions of the sheets are formed in a corrugated pattern, with the peaks and valleys of adjacent sheets being inclined in opposite directions in order to maintain sheet spacing while enabling the film flow of water thereover to cooling zones below. Honeycomb structure formed along facing, side edge portions of adjacent sheets also assists in maintenance of the requisite sheet spacing while functioning to smoothly guide the air between adjacent fill packs in a horizontal direction with a minimum of pressure loss. The honeycomb structure as well as the corrugated sections eliminate stresses within the sheets that might otherwise cause warpage sagging or bending of the latter.

Plastic fill sheet for water cooling tower with air guiding spacers

A splash bar for use in fill structure of an evaporative cooling tower has an extruded body with an elongated water impingement portion operable to uniformly disperse deflected water throughout the fill structure for contact with passing air. The splash bar body comprises a pair of arcuate in cross section side margins and an elongated, horizontal, flat top segment interconnecting the side margins. The centers of curvature of the side margins are coincident and lie beneath the body, while the width of the flat top segment is in the range of approximately 15% to approximately 35% of the overall width of the body. In preferred forms of the invention, the width of the flat top segment is approximately 25% of the overall width of the body. Advantageously, the body is hollow and includes a pair of spaced, flat, co-planar bottom walls integrally extending inwardly from the side margins. In alternate forms of the invention, the splash bar includes a pair of outwardly extending elongated side flanges coupled to the body and having notches adapted for clearing upright grid members, in order to substantially preclude longitudinal shifting of the bar as a result of vibration from the tower during operation.

Extruded fill bar for water cooling towers

A generally rectangular, bottom-vented, mechanical draft combination wet-dry water cooling tower is provided which has excellent water conservation properties and resistance to recirculation of heated discharge air, and which is designed for minimizing undue low level deflection and spreading of hot moist discharge air with essentially complete elimination of visible fog plumes above the tower. In preferred forms, the tower includes a pair of elevated, two-pass, obliquely disposed heat exchange conduit banks, a plurality of spaced, underlying evaporative cooling sections located between the conduit banks for serially receiving partially cooled water therefrom, and separate induced draft fans and structure presenting individual air discharge paths for the dry and evaporative sections respectively, in order to pull air currents through each of the latter and separately discharge the resultant dry and moist airstreams upwardly into the atmosphere in a pattern such that the dry air at least partially surrounds the central moist air. Bottom-venting of the tower between the evaporative sections allows prevailing wind currents to flow under the dry section banks and transversely through the tower for venting wind-created negative pressure eddies or vortices on the lee side of the tower which in turn minimizes recirculation of hot discharge air back to the downwind tower air inlets. Moreover, the air discharge pattern of the tower lessens low level deflection and spreading of the central moist air so that unwanted deposition of moisture on adjacent equipment or structures is minimized.

Growing community of inventors

Shawnee Mission, KS, United States of America

James R Houx, Jr