A Novel Cooling Pond

Abstract

thought that the disadvantages of removing the ice would be less than the advantages of an open type basin. Three winter seasons' experience with ice in this basin has shown that it was necessary to remove the ice at least three times during a season, requiring the labor of four to six men about a day for each removal. The dimensions of this basin are 44 by 22 feet. During the spring of 1924, while designing the foundation and cooling water piping layout for a 500 kw. steam turbine generating unit, to be installed in the electric light plant operated in conjunction with the pumping plant, the writer concluded that he had had all the experience with ice removal necessary to complete his education along this line. In laying out the circulating water piping it was decided to use the heat absorbed by the water from the steam to raise the temperature of the untreated water being pumped into the sedimentation basin. This meant using the suction well of the filter plant as a cooling pond, but without the usual expenditure of power necessary to secure elevation or pressure at the nozzles. This suction well is about 10 feet in diameter by 15 feet in depth and fed by gravity through a 16-inch wood stave pipe line from an intake located about a mile upstream in the Genesee River. The use of the so-called " water works" type of condenser was considered, but owing to difficulties in design of the turbine foundation it was thought best to use the standard type small tube surface condenser. Another factor that had to be taken into consideration was that of a varying load on the turbine which made it necessary to vary the amount of cooling water to maintain as high temperature as possible of the condensate. The filter plant is operated at a normal rate of one million gallons