Analysis and Design of Natural Draft Cooling Tower Ice Prevention Systems

Contacting : John Cooper and Associates, P. A.

John Cooper is one of the world's leading authorities on the analysis and design of ice prevention systems for counterflow natural draft cooling towers (see Publications). In the early 1980's, as an employee of Zurn Industries Cooling Tower Division, he designed the ice prevention systems for the northern-most natural draft cooling tower in the western hemisphere, i.e., at Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation's Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station Unit 2 on Lake Ontario near Oswego, New York and for Duquesne Light Company's natural draft tower at Beaver Valley Nuclear Station, Unit 2, north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Nine Mile Point Nuclear cooling tower was designed to operate with minimal ice accumulation at 50% heat load in an ambient environment of -20^oF (twenty degrees below zero Fahrenheit). John Cooper & Associates utilizes computer models to predict thermal performance of natural draft cooling towers in various winter operating modes involving usage of hot water bypass, ice prevention rings, and fill water distribution "zoning".