Evaporative cooling system

Claim 1

An evaporative cooling system comprising: a housing having generally upright respectively-opposing side walls and end walls joined by generally horizontal top and bottom walls; means defining a pair of inlet openings individually in respective ones of said side walls; means defining an outlet opening in another of said walls of said housing; a pair of vertically-oriented generally planar rigid frames individually locatable within said housing adjacent to and substantially spanning respective ones of said inlet openings, each of said frames including space-opposed vertical end bars; vertical channelways secured to said end walls and disposed individually on each respective side of said inlet openings, said channelways slidingly receiving corresponding different ones of said end bars; a pair of upper rollers individually journaled for rotation between the upper end portions of the corresponding ones of said end bars of respective ones of said frames; a pair of lower rollers individually journaled for rotation between the lower end portions of the corresponding ones of said end bars of respective ones of said frames; a pair of endless belts individually wrapped around respective different ones of the respective combinations of said rollers and frames so as to have a hollow oblong cross section elongated in a vertical direction, said belts each being of a material to which a liquid may cling and sufficiently transparent to the flow of air therethrough to achieve evaporation of said liquid on said belt by the air; means defining a reservoir of said liquid disposed in the lower portion of said housing and into which said lower rollers normally are immersed in use so that a portion of said belts also are immersed; motive drive means disposed within said housing; coupling means on each of said upper rollers for engagement with said motive drive means to drive such rollers in rotation, directly upon seating of said end bars within said channelways; means, in addition to said belts, individually coupled between respective different ones of said upper and lower rollers for driving said lower rollers from the corresponding ones of said upper rollers; and blower apparatus disposed in said housing and substantially occupying the space between said frames for drawing air through said inlet openings and said belts and exhausting said air through said outlet opening.