Droplet behaviour and collection by counterflow cooling tower eliminators

Abstract Theoretical and experimental investigations were made to establish the variation in collection efficiency with drop size for two types of cooling tower eliminator, namely the wooden lath and the corrugated asbestos-cement types. It was found that although the majority of droplets were collected as predicted a minority escaped collection due to air turbulence and bouncing on water covered regions of the eliminator. Turbulence effects were found in both eliminator systems but droplet bounce was only observed in the lath type eliminator where it was confined to droplets above 150μm dia.