core issue

In a classical SWAC (Sea Water Air Conditioning) system, the water is sucked by a pump located on the upper end of the pipe.

Deep water suction lowers the pressure inside the pipe.

Cavitation has two nefarious consequences for the system:

- it changes the behaviour of the liquid, and prevent the pump from functioning correctly.

- it is extremely destructive when the steam bubbles condensate back.

The consequence of this phenomenon is that it is imperative to limit suction power in order to avoid cavitation.

This suction limitation dramatically limits the speed of the incoming water :

This water speed limit causes two problems:

- Water flow is the main component of cold power formula

- As water is slowed down, it stays longer in the pipe, and therefore gets more heated by the environing sea water

This suction limitation is specially penalizing in small pipes, and therefore limits applications of classical SWAC systems to huge cold consumers (at least 1.5 MW).