How to Solve the Biggest Challenges in Cooling Tower Applications

Categories: Energy Gear

Article Tags:

cooling

ct-series

Gearbox

tower

For over 100 years, Falk has been trusted to design and manufacture gear drives for the world’s most demanding applications. Our engineers created the CT-Series Cooling Tower Gear Drive to address many common issues in the cooling tower industry. The design helps reduce operating costs and increase uptime, resulting in more efficient operations in the harsh rigors of cooling tower and vertical drive applications.

Falk CT-Series Solves Common Gearbox Problems

When designing the Falk Cooling Tower Gearbox, our engineers focused on optimizing performance and addressing common gearbox issues:

Common Gearbox Issue	Falk CT-Series Cooling Tower Gearbox Solution
Oil leaking, particularly at the drive input shaft.	Unlike other brands of gearboxes, CTA is designed with the oil level below the input shaft seals, which eliminates leaking.
High cost of replacement/interchange.	With critical mounting dimensions that match Amarillo, troublesome gearboxes can be easily replaced without the need to replace driveshafts or fan hubs.
High operating temperatures contribute to premature drive failure and excessive downtime, resulting in increased costs.	Integrated cooling fins greatly increase the housing surface area, improving heat dissipation and reducing operating temperatures, which ultimately extends the life of gearbox components.
Excessive sound and vibration levels cause noise violations and contribute to mechanical fatigue. Extreme sound can also contribute to unsafe noise levels for employees.	Thicker drive housing minimizes case deflections and dampens noise and vibrations. The use of premium steel shims maintains proper gear settings in harsh operating environments typical for wet cooling towers.
Costly add-on options are required for cooling tower operation.	The CTA drive comes with standard value-added features, including a high durability ISO 12944-5 C5 paint system, vibration-monitoring ports, and a ball valve. An optimized oil slinger provides proper lubrication without the need for a pump.

Don’t Take Our Word For It

To experience the benefits of the CT-Series in real-time and in a true environment, a premier chemical processor in the U.S. tested the cooling tower gear box with their applications and performance skyrocketed. This group found that their old gearboxes were underperforming, displaying vibration issues, and experienced leaking seals, resulting in frequent downtime and failure every 6-8 months. As a result, our CT-Series Cooling Tower Gear Drive effectively eliminated these issues, contributing to a 36% improvement in runtime!

Read more about the success this company experienced and CTA gear drive benefits in this case study:

Falk CT-Series Cooling Tower Gear Drive Exceeds Expectations

Chris Cowins

Chris Cowins is the Business Development Manager for Addax Composite Couplings and Falk CTA Cooling Tower Gearboxes. Chris has over 25 years of experience working with mechanical equipment in cooling towers. He is also an active Director on the CTI Board of Directors working with standards for design, manufacturing, and operation of cooling towers.