Splash Fills
Splash Fills
Splash fill consists of layers of horizontal bars or slats. When the warm water hits the surface of these bars, it spreads, breaks and forms small droplets. These work on the principle of causing the flowing water to fall through a grid of ‘splash bars/grids’ causing the water droplets to break up and increasing the contact time between water and air.
Splash fills maximize the water-surface to air interface. Instead of sheet surface, splash fills increase the water droplet surface. Splashing fills have been made of lath matrix or other forms of PVC or polyethylene. It is used in Industries which produce lot of poor-quality water. Thus, on use of splash fill the water is converted into smaller droplets any debris or dirt is separated out.
Our Product Range
The V-Bar system has proven to be a superior system to upgrade Cross Flow cooling towers that have wood splash fill and for new construction NDCT and IDCTs where dirty water would clog film fills.
Perforated V-Bar is the most extensively used product in the industry. Thermal Care can supply the stainless steel or FRP coated wire mesh as well as the other components that are needed for the entire splash bar system.
The water droplets spread over the solid surface and perforated holes of the splash bar. The flowing water is held on the holes due to surface tension and forms a thin film. The water film formed over these rectangular holes has very low surface tension at its corners and thus a tendency to rupture frequently. During this process of rupturing the water film is broken into small globules, thus providing maximum heat transfer.
Features and Advantages
- Diamond shaped perforations are recommended as they offer the ideal surface tension to rupture the water droplets.
- The top edge of the V-bar is reinforced so as it offer bending and load strength.
- Ensuring a minimum thickness of 1.5mm and a maximum distance of 600mm between adjacent bars will help reduce the possibilities of sagging.
- Compact locking of the V-Bar on the grid using a V-Bar clip (as depicted in the picture) will also ensure a sturdy fill structure.
- The overhang of the V-bar of the last grid should be restricted to 150mm.
- Algae resistant and Fire retardant
Thermal Care V-BAR clip design provides secure locking capabilities preventing wear on both the wire hanger and the fill. The tab locks provided on the V-bar prevent it from slipping once locked into place.
Technical Specifications
| Characteristics | Perforated V-bar |
|---|---|
| Material of Construction | Rigid PVC |
| Overall Dimensions | 62mm x 62mm |
| Length | Length |
| Shape and Size of Perforations | Diamond / Circular |
| Thickness at load points | 1.2mm to 1.5mm |
| Colour | Black / Grey |
A newer solution for using splash fills in counterflow towers, the PP grid fill design offers smaller tower heights as compared to splash bar based counterflow towers.
The Optigrid is one of the more established splash fills used in counterflow cooling towers. Due of the small surface area exposed to the falling water, COOLOpti is a nonfouling fill, and has been used extensively in industries and plants where fill fouling had been extensive.
Features and Advantages
- The configuration of the Optigrid allows water droplets to fall across multiple layers of horizontal strips.
- Even as the water droplets bounce off from one layer to another the thin strips cause shearing action on them causing them to break into smaller droplets.
- The construction Optigrid is configured to maximize the probability of the water droplets continuously encountering these thin horizontal strips on their way down to the basin. This is evident from the fact that alternate layers of the installed Optigrid have these strips displaced from the layers above rather than all in a single line. This results in a far more efficient working of the splashing principle.
The grids are supported in uniformly spaced tiers throughout the cell width and length on stainless steel wires hung from supports installed under the water distribution system, and on polypropylene supports specifically designed to secure the grid to the wires. Each grid in each tier is secured to all adjacent grids by special clips that tie the entire fill assembly securely in place.
Technical Specifications
| Characteristics | Optigrid Splash Grid |
|---|---|
| Material of Construction | Polypropylene |
| Product Dimensions | 956mm x 706mm |
| Installation Dimensions | 1000mm x 750mm |
| Thickness at load points | 2mm +/- 0.2mm |
| Colour | Black / Grey / White |
Advantages
- It’s very forgiving of insufficient initial water distribution, since the splashing activity redistributes the water at each level of splash bars.
- The metal grills and bars used in splash fill make it much more resilient and effective when exposed to high temperatures.
- Effectively handles water containing debris.