Hybrid wet/dry cooling tower and improved fill material for cooling tower

Abstract

A hybrid wet/dry cooling tower and novel splash fill material are provided. In one embodiment, the cooling tower includes a wet cooling section having a draft fan disposed above the wet section for drawing air through the wet section to cool liquid traversing the wet section. The cooling tower also includes a dry cooling section disposed laterally adjacent the wet section and configured to enable the draft fan to draw air through the dry section. In another embodiment, the dry cooling section has one or more added draft fan(s) for drawing air through the dry section with or without operation of the draft fan disposed above the wet section. In other embodiments, different structures and configurations of plastic splash fill material are described.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A cooling tower comprising,
 a support frame structure defining a first interior volume and a second interior volume;   a fluid distribution system configured to distribute fluid within the first and second interior volumes defined by the support frame;   a wet cooling section associated with the first interior volume, the wet cooling section comprising,
 heat transfer material disposed within the first interior volume defined by the support frame for receiving fluid from the fluid distribution system, and 
 first air moving equipment for causing air to move around the heat transfer material; and 
   a dry cooling section associated with the second interior volume and disposed laterally adjacent the wet cooling section, the dry cooling section comprising coils for receiving fluid from the fluid distribution system.