Piping Material for Seawater Cooling Duty

Hi there

As part of a plant upgrade, I need to install a new cooling water supply line to replace an existing worn out and undersized concrete lined supply line.
The flow will be around 1200 - 1300 m^3/h and head about 50m. Max seawater temperature is 25C, normal around 12C. On a hot day, the ambient temperature can get to 35C briefly. Line length, guessing,will be about 500m. The pipe will run above ground. To date there has been no problem with marine growth fouling the existing line. I am quite keen on ABS pipe for this duty and the owners seem to like impact resistant PVC. The pipe runs are fairly straight, with no room for doglegs or expansion loops. So I need to think carefully about expansion. I was thinking of something like the rubber O - rings used on sewer piping.

  Are there any systems available for absorbing expansion at the pipe joints?

What pipe material selections would others recommend for this service? Any bad experiences?

Cheers

Steve McKenzie Received on Wed May 01 04:35:00 2002