Cooling tower

A cooling tower arrangement comprising a cooling tower having an upper open end and a plurality of air inlet openings at the lower end;

• a central cooling shaft coaxially arranged within the cooling tower and defining between its outer surface and the inner surface of the cooling tower an annular space, said cooling shaft having an upper open end and a plurality of inlet openings at the lower end thereof;
• a plurality of heat-exchanger elements to be flown through by a medium to be cooled being arranged in said annular space in a plurality of concentric rings and extending in each ring in substantially radial direction and downwardly inclined toward said central shaft with the radially outermost ends of the heat-exchanger elements in the outermost ring located above said air inlet openings in the tower and with the radially innermost ends of the heat-exchanger elements of the innermost ring located at the inlet openings of the shaft so that the plurality of said heat-exchanger elements form a bowl-shaped arrangement in said annular space curving downwardly towards said shaft;
• and a trickling unit extending transverse through said central shaft in the region of said inlet openings therein over which a medium to be cooled is adapted to flow in downward direction so that cooling air will flow in one stream countercurrently to the flow of the medium to be cooled over said trickling unit and in an outer stream parallel to said one stream over said heat-exchanger elements.