Water Cooling Towers
(A) Noise Problems
Air-borne Noise
• Noise generated from water cooling towers may cause disturbance to nearby residents (see Figure 8). It mainly comes from the air flow noise resulting from air turbulence at condenser fans and water splashing noise due to water flowing through the tower into the collection basin.
Structure-borne Noise
• Vibration from a water cooling tower’s operation may be transmitted indoors through building structure at points where the cooling tower is rigidly fixed to the structure without proper isolation (see Figure 9). The vibration transmitted may activate the building structure to generate noise which causes noise disturbance to residents inside the building.
(B) Practical Remedies
Air-borne Noise
• Erect a barrier or partial enclosure between the plant and nearby residential buildings so as to block the noise propagation path, provide acoustic mat on the water surface so as to reduce the water splashing noise, and install acoustically lined vent cowl at fan discharge outlet (see Figure 10), if not much noise reduction is required.
(Noise Reduction Up to 10 dB(A))
• Fabricate a complete enclosure with silencers at condenser fan outlets and at air inlets of the enclosure (see Figure 11) so as to contain and absorb the noise from the water cooling tower when there are noise sensitive receivers all around.
(Noise Reduction Up to 30 dB(A))
Structure-borne Noise
• Provide vibration isolators to support a water-cooling tower (see Figure 12), thereby isolating it from the building structure.
(Noise Reduction Up to 20 dB(A))
