John W. Cooper, Jr., P.E. has 42 years of experience as a power plant
cooling tower thermal and hydraulic design engineer. Before
entering the cooling tower industry in 1976, he worked in the U.S.
Space Program for 5 years in Huntsville, Alabama and in Florida.
He holds a BS degree in Biological Engineering (1970) and an MS degree
in Mechanical Engineering (1971), both from Mississippi State
University.
As Chief Thermal Engineer with Zurn Industries’ Cooling Tower Division
in Tampa, Florida between 1976 and 1985, he learned the secrets of
cooling tower thermal and hydraulic design engineering from seasoned
German cooling tower engineers with Balcke Dürr Aktiengesellschaft,
Zurn’s German licensor. Under Zurn’s exclusive license agreement
with Balcke-Dürr, Zurn paid royalties to Balcke on all constructed
cooling towers in exchange for access to Balcke-Dürr’s proprietary
thermal performance and pressure drop correlations for large cooling
tower design. As one of two persons in the Zurn organization that
was granted access to the German thermal and hydraulic design
information, he wrote Zurn’s complete library of FORTRAN cooling tower
thermal and hydraulic design computer programs, incorporating the
German correlations. Balcke-Dürr Ag, originally named Balcke
Maschinenbau Aktiengesellschaft, was founded in Bochum, Germany in 1894
by Hans-Joachim Balcke, the inventor of the natural draft cooling
tower. It is noteworthy that John has enjoyed the benefits of
being the only cooling tower thermal design engineer in the United
States to have been apprenticed by Balcke engineers.
For the past 27 years, operating under the Corporate name, John Cooper
& Associates, P.A., he has served the needs of the international
electric power generation industry as an independent cooling tower
consulting engineer, in matters relating to the thermal performance
enhancement and practical operation of large natural draft and
mechanical draft cooling towers.
On 32 occasions, over the past 33 years, John has shared his
specialized cooling tower expertise with power plant engineers and
managers in the United States and in Australia in the form of formal
one or two-day training courses.
Publications
Brown, W.H. and J.W. Cooper, Jr., "Computer Simulation of the
Psychrometric Chart", Proceedings of the 1971 Summer Computer
Simulation Conference, Sponsored by
ACM/AIAA/AIChE/AMS/BSC/IEEE/ISA/SCi/SHARE, Boston, Massachusetts, July
19-21, 1971, pp. 935-940.
Cooper, J.W. Jr., "A Computer Simulation of the Human Thermoregulatory
System", NASA Report No. ASD-ASTN-1586, George C. Marshall Space Flight
Center, Huntsville, Alabama, August 1972.
Forbes, R.E., and J.W. Cooper, Jr., "Natural Convection in a Horizontal
Layer of Water Cooled from Above to Near Freezing". Journal of
Heat Transfer, Trans. ASME, Series C. Vol 87, No. 1, February 1975, pp.
47-53.
Cooper, J.W. Jr., and V. Vodicka, "Cooling Tower Ice Prevention
Systems: State-of-the-Art Designs", Proceedings of the American Power
Conference, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois, Vol.
41, 1979, pp. 697-705.
Cooper, J.W. Jr., "Criteria for Ice Prevention in Counterflow Natural
Draft Cooling Towers", Journal of the Cooling Tower Institute, Vol. 1,
No.1, June 1980, pp. 47-53.
Cooper, J.W. Jr., "Recirculation and Interference Characteristics of
Circular Mechanical Draft Cooling Towers", Journal of the Cooling Tower
Institute, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1985, pp. 28-34.
Cooper, J.W. Jr., H.D. Treuberg, and H. Klauss, "Usage of Fiber Cement
as A Film-Type Fill Media In Evaporative Cooling Towers", presented at
the Annual Winter Conference of the Cooling Tower Institute, February
8-10, 1988.
Cooper, J.W. Jr. and R.O Fraze, "Exit Air Mapping as a Means of
Identifying Sources of Thermal Performance Inefficiency in Counterflow
Cooling Towers", presented at the Electric Power Research Institute's
1991 Heat Rate Improvement Conference, Scottsdale, Arizona, May 7-9,
1991.
Lees U.A. Jr. and J.W. Cooper, Jr., "Cost-Effective Thermal Performance
Upgrade of the Callaway Plant Cooling Tower", presented at the Electric
Power Research Institute's Cooling Tower and Advanced Cooling Systems
Conference, St. Petersburg, Florida, August 30 - September 1, 1994.
Liffick, G.W. and J.W. Cooper Jr., "Thermal Performance Upgrade of The
Arkansas Nuclear One Cooling Tower: A 'Root Cause' Analysis Approach",
presented at the American Power Conference, Illinois Institute of
Technology, Chicago, Illinois, April 18-20, 1995.
Burns, J., D. Godard, R. Randall, and J.W. Cooper, Jr., "Justifying
Plans to Improve the Performance of An Existing Cooling System",
presented at the 1996 EPRI Condenser Technology Conference, Boston,
Massachusetts, August 28-30, 1996.
Cooper, G. P., III and J.W. Cooper, Jr., "Watts Bar Nuclear Unit 1
Cooling Tower Thermal Performance Upgrade: A Value Add Engineering
Approach", presented at the EPRI Cooling Tower Conference, St.
Petersburg, Florida, August 11-14, 1997.
Closser, W.H., Jr. and J.W. Cooper, Jr., “Evaluating the Performance of
Safety Related Cooling Towers”, presented at the 1999 EPRI Service
Water Reliability Improvement Seminar, Biloxi, Mississippi, July 12-13,
1999.
Grindle, E., J.W. Cooper, Jr., and R. Lawson, “Improving Natural Draft
Cooling Tower Performance with Heat Injection”, presented at the 2002
International Joint Power Generation Conference, Phoenix, Arizona, June
24-26, 2002
Bøgh, P., J.W. Cooper, Jr., I.M. Gozalo, H. Eitschberger, R.F. de Mata,
W.Wittwer, and G. Manigley, “Technological Advances in Natural Draft
Cooling Tower Thermal Performance Enhancement: Comparison of European
and American Upgrade Methodologies and Experiences”, presented at the
EPRI Cooling Tower Technology Conference, Charleston, South Carolina,
August 26-28, 2003.
Cooper, J.W., Jr., “Cooling Tower Designs for Tomorrow’s Nuclear Power
Plants”, presented at the EPRI Cooling Tower Technology Conference, Des
Moines, Iowa, August 2-3, 2006.
Cooper, J.W., Jr., “Plume Buoyancy and the Impact of Cross-Winds on
Cooling Tower Thermal Performance”, presented at the EPRI Cooling Tower
Technology Conference, Cincinnati, Ohio, August 19-20, 2009.
Warren, B.E., J.W. Cooper, Jr., R. Fulkerson, M.D. Locke, and R.W.
Richards, “Help for the Grand Gulf EPU”, Nuclear Engineering
International, Vol. 57, No. 694, May 2012, pp. 42-43.
Cooper, J.W., Jr., Cuchens, J.W., and J.D. Calhoun, “Maintenance of
Counterflow Natural Draft Cooling Towers Designed with Asbestos-Cement
Internal Components”, presented at the EPRI Cooling Tower Technology
Conference, Pensacola Beach, Florida, August 8-9, 2012.
Cooper, J.W., Jr., “Counterflow Cooling Tower Diagnostic Testing”,
Presented at the EPRI Cooling Tower Technology Conference, Louisville,
Kentucky, August 5-6, 2015.
Cooper, J.W., Jr., “The Evolution of Circular Counterflow Mechanical
Draft Cooling Towers”, Accepted for presentation at the EPRI Cooling
Tower Technology Conference, Baltimore, Maryland, August 15-16, 2018.
