Calculating chiller and cooling tower refrigeration - in tons

Cooling towers tons pairs the water-cooled chiller tons and the water-cooled condenser tons.

Chiller Refrigeration Tons

The process of cooling is called refrigeration. Refrigeration or cooling capacity can be measured
in tons.
A water-chiller refrigeration ton is defined as:
1 Refrigeration Ton (RT) = 1 TONScond = 12000 Btu/h = 200 Btu/min = 3025.9 k Calories/h =
12661 kJ/h = 3.517 kW
1 kW = 0.2843 Refrigeration Ton (RT)
A ton is the amount of heat removed by an air conditioning system that would melt 1 ton (2000
lbs.) of ice in 24 hours. The heat required to melt 1 lb of ice at 32 oF to water is 144 Btu.
1 Ton Refrigeration = (2000 lb) (144 Btu/lb) / (24 hr)
= 12000 Btu/hr
Converting between Btu/h and Tons of Refrigeration
Btu/h
6000
12000
18000
24000
30000
36000
42000
48000
54000
60000

Refrigeration Ton
1/2
1
1 1/2
2
2 1/2
3
3 1/2
4
4 1/2
5

Cooling Tower Tons

A cooling tower ton is defined as:
1 cooling tower ton = 1 TONSevap = 1 TONScond x 1.25 = 15000 Btu/h = 3782 k Calories/h =
15826 kJ/h

The equivalent ton on the cooling tower side actually rejects about 15000 Btu/h due to the heatequivalent of the energy needed to drive the chiller's compressor. This equivalent ton is defined
as the heat rejection in cooling 3 U.S. gallons/minute (1500 pound/hour) of water 10F, which
amounts to 15000 Btu/hour, or a chiller coefficient-of-performance (COP) of 4.0 - a COP
equivalent to an energy efficiency ratio (EER) of 13.65.

Heat Load and Water Flow

A water systems heat load in Btu/h can be simplified to:
h = cp q dt
= (1 Btu/lbm oF) (8.33 lbm/US gal) q (60 min/h) dt
= 500 q dt

(1)

where
h = heat load (Btu/h)
cp = specific heat, 1 (Btu/lbm oF) for water
= 8.33 (lbm/US gal) for water
q = water volume flow rate (US gal/min)
dt = temperature difference (oF)

Example - Water Chiller Cooling

Water flows with 1 gal/min and 10oF temperature difference. The ton of cooling load can be
calculated as:
Cooling load = 500 (1 US gal/min) (10 oF) / 12000
= 0.42 ton