When it comes to cooling towers, architectural design and function are intertwined. The way you design and build your tower will affect just how well or poorly your cooling tower works. And because there is little room for do-overs once a tower is constructed, it's imperative that one implement the best designs the first time. In this piece, read about three important design elements that you should pay attention to and learn why they are so important. 

Inlet louvres from top to bottom

A good number of cooling tower designs feature external inlet louvres located on the lower part of the structure. For induced cooling towers, this design will work because air from outside is being sucked in by the fan. However, that be as it may, you can get more cooling if you design your tower to have inlet louvres from top to bottom on both sides of the walls. This way, there will be even more incoming cool air from outside at all levels of the vertical fill structure. This will increase the cooling efficiency of your tower dramatically without affecting much else. 

Slanted walls to allow larger surface area for air inflow

This design element is not a new one, but it does seem to have more benefits than straight wall designs. With a slanted wall design, the cooling tower has a cone-like shape. This shape is superior to a straight wall design because it creates a larger external surface area. A larger external surface area allows you to install more inlet louvres. And with more inlet louvres installed, your tower is able to receive more cool air from outside. A larger wall surface area also allows you to install more fill structures inside the tower, thereby increasing cooling action. 

A radiation gap in between the fill sections

Most modern cooling tower designs feature a compact fill structure design. That is, the fill structure spans from one wall to the other. Although this will allow you to fit more fill and to load more hot water into the tower, it leaves no room for hot air to radiate out. Instead, opt for a design where you leave a radiation gap at the very centre of the tower, right from the fan to the collection basin. This gap will allow heat from the fill section to dissipate out faster for even better cooling action.

A cooling tower design team can help structure these ideas into your build plan or create fresh design plan for you from scratch. Either way, make sure you pay close attention to design because, as explained earlier, it will directly influence many aspects of your tower's efficiency.