Cooling Tower Fill Types, Selection and Suggestions

Cooling tower fills are a key component of cooling towers. It increases the heat dissipation, extends the retention time of the cooling water and enlarges the effective surface area, making its temperature drop accounting for 60%-70% of the entire cooling tower. Fills largely determine the circulating water-cooling effect.

There are two common types of fill media, splash fill and film fill.

• Splash Fill. Splash fill consists of layers of horizontal bars or slats. When the warm water hits the surface of these bars or slats, it spreads, breaks, forms small droplets and keeps these droplets in suspension, thereby allowing droplets being exposed to the air for a long time and accelerating the temperature drop of the water. The main advantage of splash fill is that it is suitable for insufficient initial water distribution. When the water hits the surface of splash fill, it redistributes the water into different directions. Therefore, cooling towers with splash fill can effectively handle water containing debris. When it comes to maintenance, its open nature offers easy visual inspection of the water flow pattern and the condition of the fill.

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• Film Fill. Film fill is composed of various corrugated sheets. It can be combined and stacked into blocks to create various thickness and heights to fit individual cooling towers. Although splash fill has its unique advantage in water distribution, film fill is the more popular type of fill so far. That's because it can maximize the water surface area exposed to the air within a given packed volume, thereby enhancing the heat transfer efficiency of the cooling tower.

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Fills made of different materials have different working temperatures. Even the same material with different proportion, its temperature resistance and physical properties also vary accordingly. For example, the most widely used plastic fills in cooling towers include PVC, CPVC and PP fills. We can choose the right fills according to the temperature (T) in the cooling tower.

• When the temperature is not greater than 45 °C, PVC fill is highly recommended;
• When the temperature is not greater than 55 °C, CPVC fill or PP fill is a better option;
• When the temperature is not greater than 60 °C, PP fill is highly recommended.
• When the temperature is greater than 60 °C, plastic fills aforesaid are no longer applicable, other high temperature resistant materials such as FRP or aluminum alloy should be considered.

In addition to the temperature, choosing the right cooling tower fill shall also take cooling tower types, circulating cooling water quality and design operating conditions into account to choose an efficient cooling tower fill and improve the heat-transfer efficiency of the cooling tower.

If you still confuse about how to choose the right cooling tower fill, tell us your cooling tower operating conditions, we will take these factors into considerate and find the most efficient cooling tower fill for you. Just contact us directly, we are here 24/7.