In unfavourable conditions (siting, thermal loading, water chemistry, etc.), high efficiency film fill can quickly become fouled causing the plant process to become bottlenecked. In severely fouled situations the cooling tower fill can become so heavy with foulant and the increased water hold-up, that the fill may collapse into the basin. A routine scheduled monitoring program, using either permanently installed or portable instrumentation, will check the film fill condition regularly so that neither plant throughput or operability are compromised.

The DCS method of film fill fouling monitoring, through measurement and analysis, will track the impact on airflow and thermal performance, for the stacked fill pack. This method has the following advantages over methods associated with fill pack weighing:

• Does not require film fill pack removal from the tower.
• Does not require installation of load cells.
• Does not require the cooling tower cell to be taken out of service for measurement.
• Eliminates the moisture content error inherent in film fill pack weighing methods.
• Monitors the impact on thermal performance and not just film fill pack weight change.
• Monitors the film fill pack stack and not just one unrepresentative layer, as all layers foul at different rates.

Poorly monitored fill leads to fouling and cell failure

Well monitored fill with a balanced chemical treatment