A unified approach to predict evaporation losses in evaporative heat exchangers

In this paper, the rules of thumb used to predict evaporation losses in different evaporative heat exchangers are unified. The accurate prediction of all aspects of evaporative heat exchanger behavior is very important. Accurately predicting evaporation losses is significant since water, in this class of heat exchangers, is cooled primarily by evaporation of a portion of the circulating water that causes the concentration of impurities to increase. Furthermore, the design of hybrid cooling towers requires that the amount of evaporation be known. A single correlation is, therefore, developed for this class of heat exchangers that is simple and accurate with a wide range of applicability. The predicted values are in good agreement with experimental values as well as predictions made by reliable mathematical models.