ISO-Frame Cooling Tower for Compact Transport and Stacking
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing cooling towers require a large height dimension, preventing their placement in desired positions, such as being stacked or abutting one another, and face issues with transportability and road clearance due to non-standard dimensions.
Innovation Solution
A cooling tower design conforming to ISO shipping container dimensions with a skeletal frame, telescoping legs, and a compact water distribution and collection system, allowing for reduced vertical space and ease of transport, enabling stacking and adjacent placement.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Length of stationary object
If traditional cooling tower design is used, then sufficient water distribution spacing and water fall distance are achieved, but the height dimension becomes relatively large, preventing placement in desired positions and causing transportability issues
Solution Approach 1:
The invention reconfigures the cooling tower from a vertical orientation to a horizontal orientation. The fill media is arranged horizontally between inlet and outlet plenums, allowing air to flow horizontally through the fill while water distributes vertically onto the horizontal fill surface. This dimensional transformation reduces the height requirement while maintaining sufficient water distribution spacing and water fall distance, enabling placement in spaces with height constraints and improving transportability.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention employs adjustable support legs that can be extended or retracted to accommodate different installation heights and terrain conditions. This dynamic adjustment capability allows the cooling tower to adapt to various placement requirements without changing its fundamental horizontal configuration, thereby improving placement flexibility while maintaining the reduced height dimension.
2Area of stationary object
If cooling towers are placed close together or stacked, then space utilization improves, but traditional designs lack the structural configuration to enable such arrangements
Solution Approach 1:
By transforming the cooling tower from vertical to horizontal configuration, the invention reduces the height dimension and expands the footprint area. This allows multiple towers to be placed adjacent to each other in a compact arrangement or stacked vertically with proper clearance, significantly improving space utilization compared to traditional vertical designs.
Solution Approach 2:
The horizontal configuration with adjustable support legs provides multi-functional adaptability, enabling the cooling tower to be placed in various configurations including adjacent placement and stacking. The standardized interface and adjustable height capability make the design universally applicable to different installation scenarios, whether ground-level adjacent placement or elevated stacking arrangements.
3Productivity
If non-standard dimensions are used, then cooling tower performance can be optimized, but transportability becomes problematic due to road clearance constraints
Solution Approach 1:
The horizontal configuration redistributes the cooling tower's dimensions, reducing height to fit under road clearances while extending the horizontal footprint. This allows the tower to maintain its cooling capacity through sufficient fill media volume and area, while the reduced height enables transport without disassembly on standard roads and bridges.
Solution Approach 2:
The adjustable support legs provide dynamic height adjustment capability, allowing the cooling tower to be configured at different heights for both transport and installation. During transport, the legs can be retracted to minimize height, and during installation, they can be extended to achieve the required operational height, thereby resolving the conflict between transportability and cooling performance.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The design reduces vertical space requirements, lowers energy costs, and increases cooling capacity per unit area by allowing for closer placement and stacking, while maintaining efficient heat transfer and water drainage.
Implementation Method 1
Air is directed upwardly through the fill media, in 'counter flow' to the water moving down, and exits the top of the fill media. Fans positioned above the fill media move the air upwardly through the fill media. As is known in the art, the upwardly moving air, in counterflow to the downwardly moving hot water, removes heat from the water.
Implementation Method 2
Cooling towers, broadly, are heat exchangers that transfer heat from (typically) water sources
Implementation Method 3
Water can then be sprayed downwardly onto the fill media, where it moves by gravity through the media to drip out the bottom
Implementation Method 4
the piping feeding the nozzles (comprising the header and lateral sections) is positioned within a layer of drift eliminator, which captures water mist which is being pulled upwardly by the air stream
Data Source
AI summary
A cooling tower for evaporative cooling of water is contained within an ISO-compliant shipping container frame, permitting stacking of cooling towers for transport and for certain industrial applications. A volume of fill media is contained within the frame. Spaced apart troughs underlie the fill media, running substantially the length of the fill media and connecting to a basin. Baffles are connected to one upper edge of the troughs, while an air flow space is positioned over the other upper trough edge. A water distribution system, with variable flow nozzles positioned closely above the fill media, sprays water over the upper surface of the fill media, where it moves by gravity down into the troughs. Fans atop the fill media move air vertically upward through the fill media.