Theory 65/Engineering & infrastructure/Cooling towers
Tower Performance Is Approach
The claim
Cooling tower performance is set by the ratio of approach to range, so a tower asked for a small approach must be disproportionately large.
01Mechanism
Heat and mass transfer drive the water toward the wet-bulb temperature asymptotically.
02Prediction
Size should scale inversely with approach.
03Refutation
Size tracking heat load would remove the approach.