Comparative experimental drift study between a dry and adiabatic fluid cooler and a cooling tower

Water drift emitted from cooling towers is objectionable for several reasons, mainly due to human health reasons. These objections make the installation of the cooling towers difficult and penalize the COP of the cooling plants. The dry and adiabatic fluid cooler works as a standard fluid dry cooler enhancing the dry cooler's capacity with adiabatic pre-cooling of the air intake. The objectives of this work were twofold: the first one was to review the available drift test methods usually used on cooling towers, and the second one was to carry out drift measurements on a dry and adiabatic fluid cooler and on a cooling tower of similar capacity working in real facilities. No drift was registered on the dry and adiabatic fluid cooler when using the sensitive paper drift test method, while a drift of 0.0023% was measured in the cooling tower.