Dirty Air Coolers

[rantunes]

Hi everyone!

I have the following problem:
I've installed a dry cooler (water in about 80 ºC, water out about 60 ºC) but it's in a mill that works with a lot of thin sand (like dust).
Now I have a lot of "dirt" in the aluminum fins and copper tube (the fin spacing is really tight).

Does anyone have/know where I can find a table that allows me to correlate the amount of "dirtiness" with the lost of capacity...(or pressure drop)...?
Almost like a fouling factor?

Best regards and thanks in advanced,
RAntunes.

[al]

If you do a regular cleaning of the fins, use a power hose but stand well back, then you should be able to operate at max capacity.

alec

[rantunes]

Alec,

Thank you for your help.
We will do that, but the problem is that we need to calculate or at least estimate the amount of power we're losing in the dry cooler...
So any info would be a great help.

Thank you.

[TRASH101]

Do you have a steady flow rate through the coil? If so why not monitor fluid temp differential and use flow rate to find a power rating?

Or duct the air side coil faces and do the same that way either as pd and/or td to derive whatever info you need.

Or filter the air on to the dry cooler and save yourself some trouble ;)