Design and construction of a pilot scale heat exchanger-cooling tower system for scaling/deposition and inhibition studies

In this manuscript we present the design and construction of a pilot system that incorporates both a heat exchanger component and a cooling tower add-on. This prototype was constructed in order to simulate real industrial open recirculating cooling systems. Heat exchanger planning was realized using mass and energy balance. The application of mass balance was realized under permanent (static) conditions, whereas the application of energy balance was realized under non-permanent (dynamic) conditions, as it happens in a real industrial setting. Also, the necessary pump power was calculated in order for the cooling tower to function in a “cross-flow” fashion for most efficient water cooling. The pilot system allows the use of water of choice (either artificial or natural), the selection of different metallurgies for the heat exchanger, as well as monitoring of important metrics in the system (inlet and outlet temperatures, heat exchanger temperature, etc). The goal is to use this pilot system for sparingly-soluble salt precipitation and deposition studies.