flow cooling tower, a primary and secondary chilled water circuit
separated by an intermediate heat exchanger and a secondary side
variable system load. Experimental studies demonstrated that for
climatic conditions typical of Dublin, Ireland, the system was
capable of delivering cooling water to within a 1 K primary
approach temperature and a 2 K secondary approach temperature
of the ambient wet bulb temperature [8]. The boundary conditions
that distinguish the operation of this cooling tower from other heat
rejection towers include a low heat rejection range, typically less
than 21 C and a low approach to the ambient wet bulb temperature
(to within 1 K). In order to achieve this, a number of unique
features were incorporated into the design of the tower including a
low L/G ratio (L/G < 1.0) due to the relatively high air flow rates and
a relatively high surface area to volume ratio [7,8]. Experimental
correlations for estimating the cooling tower coefficient or the
Merkel (Me) number for the cooling tower were published, where
it was reported that the average uncertainty associated with the
correlation coefficient was to within 5%, based on the uncertainty
of the experimental data [7]. The performance of this system for
different water flow rate was investigated and system COPs of between
6 and 16 were reported, which is better than the average COP
for centrifugal chillers operating under similar boundary conditions