Ship Maintenance: Descaling is Critical for Effective Heat Transfer

Water scale on any heat transfer surface reduces the effectiveness of that heat transfer. In turn, this results in reduced equipment efficiency while increasing energy consumption, increasing costs and even increasing plant operational downtime. Often this “buildup” problem is either ignored or relegated to “fixing it at the last minute or upon mechanical failure” status because of downtime costs. This is historically based on the premise that descaling takes a great deal of time.

As a marine engineer, this brings focus to one very important concern – every cruise and merchant ship must be self-sustaining as far as the production of fresh water is concerned.

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