The Ministry of Defence approached WES Ltd to see if it was possible to design and build a system to dose chlorine into the seawater intake cooling water tubes of a nuclear submarine, to reduce bio-fouling in the delicate nuclear reactor heat exchanger systems.
There were potential problems - the system had to be positioned on the dockside and could not interact with the submarines internal systems. The system had to provide a dose of chlorine proportional to the seawater intake flow rate, with the chemical underwater.
WES Ltd designed a secure dockside-based storage and dosing unit with an umbilical cord comprising the dosing pipework and control signals that runs underwater to a special buoyant polyethylene assembly. The assembly comprised of a chemical injector, flowmeter and a filter screen that was attached to the intake tube externally by divers.
The dosing control had to be innovative to ensure that chemical was only dosed when cooling water was flowing and not react to normal tidal flows or surges.
The system and trials have proved successful and WES are currently discussing further systems with the MOD.
There were potential problems - the system had to be positioned on the dockside and could not interact with the submarines internal systems. The system had to provide a dose of chlorine proportional to the seawater intake flow rate, with the chemical underwater.
WES Ltd designed a secure dockside-based storage and dosing unit with an umbilical cord comprising the dosing pipework and control signals that runs underwater to a special buoyant polyethylene assembly. The assembly comprised of a chemical injector, flowmeter and a filter screen that was attached to the intake tube externally by divers.
The dosing control had to be innovative to ensure that chemical was only dosed when cooling water was flowing and not react to normal tidal flows or surges.
The system and trials have proved successful and WES are currently discussing further systems with the MOD.
