INTERNATIONAL

OF ADVANCED
ENGINEERING
International Journal of JOURNAL
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in Engineering RESEARCH
and TechnologyIN
(IJARET),
ISSN 0976
AND TECHNOLOGY
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6480(Print), ISSN 0976 6499(Online),
Volume 6, Issue 2, February
(2015), pp. 63-70 IAEME
ISSN 0976 - 6480 (Print)
ISSN 0976 - 6499 (Online)
Volume 6, Issue 2, February (2015), pp. 63-70
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IJARET
IAEME

MERKELS METHOD FOR DESIGNING INDUCED

DRAFT COOLING TOWER
Parin Shah1
1,2,

Nishant Tailor2

Department of Chemical Engineering, Institute of Technology,

Nirma University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, INDIA

ABSTRACT
In general, cooling towers are used to dissipate process waste heat into the atmosphere. In
this paper, induced draft cooling tower has been designed by simplified merkels method. The design
of cooling tower is based on Merkels method. The tower characteristic is determined by the ratio of
range and log-mean-enthalpy difference. Optimization of the operating conditions for cooling tower
applications in cooling water is extremely significant in order to get the most energy efficient
operating point for these systems. A simple algebraic formula is used to calculate the optimum
water-to-air flow rate. Merkels method is the most widely accepted theory for cooling tower
calculations. It combines equations for heat and water vapor transfer. The objective of this paper is to
present the design procedure of counter flow cooling towers in a simplified manner
Keywords: Cooling Tower; Merkels Method; Optimization; Tower Characteristic
1. INTRODUCTION
Cooling towers are widely used to dissipate process waste heat into the atmosphere. The
interaction of water and air in cooling tower may be counter or cross current. In counter flow
cooling towers, heat and mass transfer takes place between a falling liquid film and the air stream
moving counter currently. Film type fills are used in counter flow cooling towers. Drift eliminators
are provided at the top of the tower to avoid drift losses. Supply of fresh water is required to
compensate blow-down losses, evaporation losses and drift losses. The transfer of heat from water to
air takes place by convection and through evaporation of water. Merkels method is the most widely
accepted theory for cooling tower calculations. It combines equations for heat and water vapor
transfer. The objective of this paper is to present the design procedure of counter flow cooling
towers in a simplified manner.
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International Journal of Advanced Research in Engineering and Technology (IJARET), ISSN 0976
6480(Print), ISSN 0976 6499(Online), Volume 6, Issue 2, February (2015), pp. 63-70 IAEME

NOMENCLATURE
a
Cp,a
Cw
D
e
G
hfg
Hs
Hs1
Hs2
Ha
Ha1
Ha2
H1
H2
h
K
L
P
P
p
Tw
Tw,i
Tw,o
V

surface area per unit volume (m-1)

specific heat of saturated air, (kJ/kg)
specific heat of water, (kJ/kg K)
distance between cooling tower packing, (mm)
height of roughness element, (mm)
air flow rate (kg/sec)
latent heat of evaporation of water vapor, (kJ/kg)
enthalpy of saturated air at local water temperature, (kJ/kg)
enthalpy of saturated air at outlet, (kJ/kg)
enthalpy of saturated air at inlet, (kJ/kg)
enthalpy of local air stream, (kJ/kg)
enthalpy of inlet air, (kJ/kg)
enthalpy of outlet air, (kJ/kg)
inlet enthalpy difference, (kJ/kg)
outlet enthalpy difference , (kJ/kg)
Enthalpy correction factor, (kJ/kg)
mass transfer coefficient, (kg/m2 sec)
water flow rate, (kg/sec)
ambient pressure, (kPa)
distance between repeated ribs, (mm)
pitch of packing, (mm)
mean water temperature, (K) [= (Tw,i+ Tw,o) / 2)
inlet water temperature, (K)
outlet water temperature, (K)
volume of packing, (m3)
angle of inclination of cross ribbing with the horizontal, ()

2. PROCEDURE FOR ESTIMATING THE SIZE OF COOLING TOWER

Before designing a cooling tower, it is very important to determine the range and approach.
Approach varies with the entering air wet bulb temperature, flow rate of water and the heat load. The
first step in design a cooling tower is to choose the design conditions like inlet water temperature,
outlet water temperature, water flow rate and inlet air wet bulb temperature.
2.1 Calculation of Merkel integral
The Merkels method is the most widely used method for cooling tower design. The equation
for Merkels method is:

(1)

64

International Journal of Advanced Research in Engineering and Technology (IJARET), ISSN 0976
6480(Print), ISSN 0976 6499(Online), Volume 6, Issue 2, February (2015), pp. 63-70 IAEME

Where K is the mass transfer coefficient, a is the surface area per unit volume of the packing, V is the
volume of the packing. Hs is the enthalpy of saturated air at local water temperature and Ha is the
enthalpy of local air stream.The conventional method to calculate the Merkel integral (KaV/L) makes
use of an enthalpy-temperature diagram (Fig. 1). The values of Hs at different temperatures are
obtained from Perrys Chemical Engineers Handbook. The enthalpy of inlet air Ha1 is taken at
prevailing air wet bulb temperature. The amount of heat lost by water is equal to the enthalpy rise in
air. The heat balance equation is written as:
CwtwL = HaG

(2)

Where Cwis the specific heat of water, tw is the temperature of water stream, L is the flow rate of
water and G is the flow rate of air. Hais written as:
Ha= Cwtw(L / G)

(3)

Therefore, the enthalpy of outlet air Ha2 is calculated as:

Ha2 =Ha1 + (L / G)Cw (Tw,i - Tw,o)

(4)

It is observed in Fig.1 that the curve of Ha against the water temperature is a linear line
making an angle of with the horizontal. The value of tan is equal to the ratio of flow rate of water
to the flow rate of air [1].

Fig.1. Enthalpy-Temperature diagram [1]

The curve for 1 / (Hs Ha) is plotted as a function of the local water temperature (Fig.2). The
value of tower characteristic (KaV/L) is obtained by determining the area under the curve in Fig.2.

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International Journal of Advanced Research in Engineering and Technology (IJARET), ISSN 0976
6480(Print), ISSN 0976 6499(Online), Volume 6, Issue 2, February (2015), pp. 63-70 IAEME

Fig.2. 1/(Hs Ha) plotted against local water temperature [1]

This method of calculating the tower characteristic (KaV/L) is tedious and time consuming.
In place of this method, following simplified may be useful. The curve for Hs in Fig. 1 was modified
using a straight line drawn in the manner shown in Fig. 3

Fig.3. Approximating the curve for Hs with a straight line [1]

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International Journal of Advanced Research in Engineering and Technology (IJARET), ISSN 0976
6480(Print), ISSN 0976 6499(Online), Volume 6, Issue 2, February (2015), pp. 63-70 IAEME

The position of this line was defined by introducing the correction factor h, where
(5)
h=
Hs1 and Hs2 are the values of Hsat the outlet and inlet respectively, and Hsmis the value of Hs at the
mean water temperature. The tower characteristic was calculated from the following equation:
(6)
whereHm is the log-mean-enthalpy difference, defined as
(7)

where H1and H2 are inlet and outlet enthalpy differences between Hsand Ha [1].
3.1.1 Case Study
A cooling tower is used to cool 50C water to yield an approach temperature of 5C when the
entering air wet bulb temperature is 25C. The L/G ratio was considered as 1.25. The Merkel integral
was calculated by conventional method as well as by equation (6).
For an approach temperature of 5C and a wet bulb temperature of 25C, the temperature of
the water at the cooling tower outlet is 30C. Hence the temperature range is 50 30 = 20C. The
enthalpy of air stream Ha increases linearly with the water temperature, and the total increase of
4.186
20 = 104.65 kJ/kg.
enthalpy H is evaluated using Eqn as: H = (L/G) CwTw = 1.25
Since the air enters the tower at a wet bulb temperature of 25C, the air enthalpy at the air inlet is
94.38 kJ/kg, while that at the air outlet is 94.38 + 104.65 = 199.03 kJ/kg. For numerical integration
for the tower characteristic, refer table 1.
Table 1: Numerical integration for tower characteristic
Enthalpy at Enthalpy of
Hs - Ha
Tw,
air, Ha
kJ/kg
1 /(Hs - Ha)
Hs(kJ/kg)
(kJ/kg)
117.84
94.38
23.46
0.0426
147.34
120.54
26.80
0.0373
184.48
146.71
37.77
0.0265
232.01
172.87
59.14
0.0169
293.03
199.03
94.00
0.0106

Water
temperature,
Tw, (C)
30
35
40
45
50
KaV/L = 4.186

Average
1 /(Hs - Ha)
0.0399
0.0319
0.0217
0.0137
0.1072

0.1072 = 2.24

As a check, the tower characteristic is calculated by the log-mean-enthalpy method. The inlet
and outlet enthalpy differences between the Hs and Ha curves are H2 = 293.03 199.03 = 94.00
kJ/kg; H1 = 117.84 94.38 = 23.46 kJ/kg. The enthalpy correction factorhis found to be equal to
10.47 kJ/kg. Hm is calculated using equation (7), Hm = 37.94 and the corrected tower
characteristic from equation (6) is 2.20 which is within 2% of the value obtained by numerical
integration [1].
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International Journal of Advanced Research in Engineering and Technology (IJARET), ISSN 0976
6480(Print), ISSN 0976 6499(Online), Volume 6, Issue 2, February (2015), pp. 63-70 IAEME

3.2 Determination of optimum (L/G).

Optimization of the operating conditions for cooling tower applications in cooling water is
extremely significant in order to get the most energy efficient operating point for these systems. The
optimum ratio of flow rate of water to flow rate of dry air can be determined by using the following
equation.

(8)

For a typical cooling tower problem, it is assumed that

= 4.181 kJ/(kg K),
= 1.0035
kJ/(kg K),
= 2500 kJ/kg and
= 101.325 kPa. The value of (L/G)opt can also be obtained from
the plot of (L/G)opt for different Tw (Fig.4) [2].

Fig.4. Variation of optimum L/G values for P = 101.325 kPa [2]

3.3 Determination of packing size
The value of V (volume of packing) was obtained from the calculated KaV/L. For this the
values of K (mass transfer coefficient) and a (surface area per unit volume) were needed. Different
types of fills have different values of K and a. Now-a-days cooling tower manufacturers are using
PVC packing with smooth and cross ribbing. Manufacturers treat such data as proprietary.
Experiments conducted by Goshayshi H.R. and Missenden J.F. [3] were helpful to obtain the values
of K and a for different types of PVC packings. The values of a was obtained from Table 2.
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International Journal of Advanced Research in Engineering and Technology (IJARET), ISSN 0976
6480(Print), ISSN 0976 6499(Online), Volume 6, Issue 2, February (2015), pp. 63-70 IAEME

Fig.5. PVC packing used in cooling tower [3].

Table 2: Characteristics of different type of packings [3]
Type of
a
p
D
Type of
Packing
p/D
corrugation (m-1)
(mm)
(mm)
surface
C1
Sinusoidal
200
70
50
1.40
Rough
C2
Sinusoidal
250
65
40
1.65
Rough
C3
Triangular
300
45
40
1.13
Smooth
C4
Triangular
350
50
35
1.43
Rough
C5
Hexagonal
470
40
25
1.32
Rough
C6
Sinusoidal
500
30
20
1.50
Rough
C7
Triangular
500
30
20
1.50
Rough

P/e
1
3
4
5
4
5

()
45
0
0
0
45
0

The correlations for K were also determined experimentally. The values of K for different
(L/G) were obtained for Fig. 7. Having determined the values of K and a, the value of V was
determined. By fixing the cross-sectional area, the height of packing was calculated.

Fig.6. Heat transfer characteristic of packing with different spacing and surface roughness [3]

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International Journal of Advanced Research in Engineering and Technology (IJARET), ISSN 0976
6480(Print), ISSN 0976 6499(Online), Volume 6, Issue 2, February (2015), pp. 63-70 IAEME

3.4 Experimental work and conclusion

Based on the above integrated method, a lab scale induced draft cooling tower was designed
and fabricated. The optimum value of L/G = 1.75 was determined from the experimental results of
M. S. Soylemez. The values of K and a for the PVC fills used came out to be 0.06 kg/(m2 sec) and
200 m-1 respectively. The average dry and wet bulb temperatures of ambient air were 33C and 23C
respectively. It was measured using a digital thermo-hygrometer. The inlet water temperature was
50C and the approach was 5C hence giving a temperature range of 22C. Later the tower was
operated at different (L/G) ratios and the performance was evaluated. When the temperature of the
entering and leaving cooling water is constant, the thermal efficiency of the cooling tower was
controlled by the mass rate ratio of water and air. The larger the mass rate ratio of water and air is,
the lower the thermal efficiency is, that is, the evaporation rate of the moisture is small. When the
thermal load increases, it is needed to increase the air mass rate to maintain the thermal efficiency
constant. This is demonstrated in Table 3. The air flow rate was varied by installing a fan regulator.
The temperature of water was measured using a thermocouple attached to a digital temperature
indicator. A vane anemometer was used to measure the air velocity which was multiplied with the
cross sectional area and air density to obtain the mass flow rate of air.

L/G
1.25
1.75
2.25

Table 3: Performance evaluation of cooling tower

Range
Approach
23
4
21
6
18
9

Efficiency
85.18 %
77.78 %
66.67%

REFERENCES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

6.

7.

Frass AP. Heat Exchanger Design. Wiley Interscience [chapter 19 p. 383-400]

Soylemez MS. On the optimum performance of forced draft counter flow cooling towers.
Energy Conservation and Management 2004; 45: 2335-41.
Goshayshi HR, Missenden JF. Investigation of cooling tower packings in various
arrangements. Applied Thermal Engineering 2000; 20: 69-80.
Li KW, Priddy AP. Power Plant System Design. Wiley; 1985 [chapter 8 p.326]
Sowmya G, S.Nagendra Prasad and N.Kumar, Optimal Placement Of Custom Power
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Finite Element Analysis For Structural Response of RCC Cooling Tower Shell Considering
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