| An ACHE is a device for rejecting heat from a fluid directly to ambient air. This is in contrast to rejecting heat to water and then rejecting it to air, as with a shell and tube heat exchanger and a wet cooling tower system. The obvious advantage of an ACHE is that it does not require water, which means that plants requiring large cooling capacities need not be located near a supply of cooling water. An ACHE may be as small as an automobile radiator or large enough to reject the heat of turbine exhaust steam condensation from a 1,200 MW power plant –which would require 42 modules, each 90 feet wide by 180 feet long and served by two 60-foot diameter fans driven by 500-horsepower motors. |
