Apparatus Providing Softened Makeup Water for Cooling System

摘要

An apparatus introduces partially-purified, softened makeup water into an open recirculating cooling system by injecting proportionated softened makeup water into a secondary side system (such as for filtering the system water) and connected to its primary recirculating system. Proportional unsoftened makeup water is introduced through the secondary side system lines. In particular, the present apparatus and method includes controlling proportional additions (via batch or continuously) of softened and unsoftened makeup water based on cycles of concentration of the system water, and based on characteristics (e.g. conductivity) of the unsoftened makeup water. For example, the present innovation allows the water softener equipment to be placed inside the building where components are easier to install, service, and maintain, while still resulting in optimal control for purposes of minimizing total makeup water required. This results in a more environmentally friendly system with less water usage and installation/maintenance savings.

主权项

1. An apparatus comprising:
an open recirculating cooling system having recirculating system water therein; a blowdown system operably connected to the cooling system for periodically draining an amount of the system water from the cooling system when the system water is overloaded with one or both of minerals and impurities; an unsoftened makeup water source and a softened makeup water source each operably connected to one of the cooling system and the blowdown system for adding makeup water back into the system water; a water meter generating a signal indicating the amount of system water discharged to a drain; and a controller operably connected to the water meter and to the softened makeup water source and that is programmed to proportionately add to the system water an amount of the softened makeup water based on cycles of concentration of the system water and also based in part on the signal indicating the amount of system water drained from the cooling system.