Diseño y construcción de una torre de enfriamiento de agua por tiro inducido para el laboratorio de operaciones unitarias

Abstract

The objective of this Curricular Integration Work consisted of the design and construction of a counterflow induced draft water cooling tower, whose main function is to reject the heat coming from the water of different industrial processes, to determine the size of the counterflow induced draft cooling tower. It was taken as reference the cooling tower that exists in the laboratory of unitary operations of the ESPOCH; analyses were made such as the hardness and pH of the water to be used in the equipment, then the values corresponding to the design were calculated, to finally carry out the construction, which will serve to confirm the operation. Through the results of the engineering calculations the tower was constructed with the structure in stainless steel 304; in the sides 4 plates of acrylic of 6 mm were used; the system of the water distribution was made up of a 0. 5 HP pump and 60 sprinklers distributed in 10 pipes; the cold water tank with a capacity of 80 l and the water heater with a capacity of 73 l constituted by 4 1500 W resistances; a 350 W air extractor, using 220 V electricity as the power source. In addition, the automation of the equipment by means of Arduino and the use of 4 temperature sensors and 2 water level sensors were used. The validation of the equipment was performed with the water input to the tower in a range of 40-60 ºC and a tower output of 20 ºC was obtained in a time period of 5 min. The cooling tower has an efficiency of 95%, meeting the proposed objective. The use of light water is recommended due to its low hardness in order to avoid mineral incrustations