When and How to Replace Cooling Tower Fills?

Cooling tower fills performs crucial performance in cooling tower system. They need regular maintenance and proper use to guarantee the high efficiency. But when the maintenance don't work so well, the cooling tower fill will use much more energy to do its job. To save money, guarantee the stable running of cooling tower, the worn-out cooling tower fills need to be replaced.

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When Cooling Tower Fill Should Be Replaced?

• Increased Energy Consumption
  When the fills can't work, the water flowing through the cooling tower won't getting cooled. This means it will take more electricity to do the same job. While the electricity quantity your cooling tower uses suspend the normal, you need to check the cooling tower fills and see if it need to be replaced.
• Calcium Buildup
  Makeup water contains a lot of dissolved solids including Calcium. Calcium from hard water will build up in the fill causing blockage. When the fills clogged, the air and water cannot pass through smoothly and the cooling tower will not work as normal. If normal cleaning and maintenance cannot remove the Calcium, the cooling tower fills need to be replace in time.
• Uneven Distribution of Water
  Cooling tower can maximize the cold air and hot water contact area to cooling the water. When the water isn't being distributed properly because of the damaged or logged cooling tower fills, the performance will be dramatically impacted. So, you need to replace the cooling tower fills timely.
• Sagging & Warped Fill Packs
  If the cooling tower fills you installed is poor quality or the lifetime is too long, they may be warped from heat or sag with age. At that time, the cooling tower fills cannot work well as original. You need to replace the fill packs immediately.

How to Replace the Cooling Tower Fills?

1. Before the construction, other equipment need to be protected through necessary isolation and listing. Then lay the waterproof construction cloth on the floor.
2. Remove the old support grid.
3. Remove the old fills.
4. Install the support grid from the bottom upwards.
5. Install the fills from the bottom upwards, inside and outside following the support grid.

Note: The motor power should be turn off before beginning the replacement work. And more details of installation steps, just refer to the cooling tower fills installation of the new cooling towers and complete the replacement of fills.

Cleaning of cooling tower fill

Cooling tower fill, also known as cooling tower packaging is one of the most important parts of a cooling tower. The fill maximizes the contact between air and water, so these parts ensure that cooling is possible. Cleaning and keeping the fill clean is therefore an essential activity, which must be done as well as possible. Fouling such as scaling has a detrimental effect on the heat transfer and thus the overall efficiency of the cooling tower.

Chemical cleaning

The fill/packaging of both crossflow and counterflow type cooling towers are quite thick. It is therefore difficult to clean them manually with, for example, high-pressure washers. In addition, the risk is too great that they will be damaged when they are sprayed with 80-100 bar (- PSI).

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Chemical cleaning using the CIP method (cleaning-in-place) is a relatively simple and effective way to clean cooling tower fill. A chemical cleaning agent, such as Scalebreak-MP, is added to the cold water basin. The mixture is then circulated with the natural flow of the cooling tower. As a result, the cleaning agent reacts with all parts of the cooling tower, but also the piping and connected heat exchangers, such as the chiller or plate heat exchanger. Ultimately, the cleaning agent ends up in the water distribution system. The nozzles distribute the cleaning agent over the fill, so that it can also be cleaned.

Cleaning-In-Place (CIP)

With a (preventive) CIP program it is possible to keep the cooling tower in optimal condition. Because the cleaning takes place preventively, the deposits cannot grow to an extreme level. This makes it possible to avoid early replacement of cooling tower fill. Some other advantages of this method are:

• Saving manpower and labor, because the system can do the job itself. The cooling tower pump ensures that the cleaning agent ends up everywhere. It is therefore only necessary to add the cleaning agent to the cold water bassin and eventually neutralize and discharge it.
• Shorter downtime, because the installation does not have to be dismantled and the fill and other parts can remain in place during and after cleaning.
• Cost savings because cooling tower fill packaging does not have to be replaced early.
• During cleaning, it is possible to place air inlet louvers, drift separators and other components in the cold water basin. These will then also be cleaned.
• A preventive CIP program keeps the cooling tower and the entire cooling loop in optimum condition. Due to the high cleanliness of the installation, a stable, high efficiency close to the original values can be ensured. High cleanliness also contributes to a longer lifespan of the cooling tower and the associated heat exchangers, components, etc.

Crossflow cooling towers

The fill of crossflow cooling towers have a different positioning compared to the counterflow cooling towers. With these types of fill packaging it is also possible to clean the outer side with a low pressure cleaning system and chemical cleaning agent, such as Scalebreak-Gel.

The chemical cleaning agent is first applied to the fouled surfaces by using the TFC-JR device, because of the high viscosity the cleaning agent adheres well to the surfaces. Almost immediately after application, the product will react with biological and scale deposits. After some time, the cleaning agent and loosened deposits are sprayed off with a low-pressure cleaning device, such as the CC-400HF. With this cleaning method it is not possible to clean the entire cooling tower fill, only the outer part to a depth of 100-150 millimeters.

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