Fill Upgrade Avoided as Cumulative Retrofits Negated Performance Gain

A Diagnostic Performance Audit™ was undertaken at a North American refinery where the process was cooling limited. The study had two main objectives. The primary objective was to predict the thermal performance gain of a proposed tower fill replacement project. The secondary objective was to expose any cooling tower components that were underperforming and required targeted maintenance.

The tower was approximately 40 years old and had been updated at various stages over that period. The audit revealed the combined impact of these disparate changes created a serious design shortcoming and that the proposed tower fill replacement would have resulted in only a marginal improvement in thermal performance.

The Diagnostic Performance Audit™ analysis also provided a list of less radical maintenance items to fix specific waterside and airside problems that were contributing to poor cooling tower efficiency. As a result, the client was able to avoid costly maintenance that would have only provided an incremental improvement in thermal performance, and direct funds to a complete solution to the cooling limitation.