Larsen & Toubro Construction (L&T) was responsible for Detailed Design, Engineering, Procurement and Supply of a large cooling water system for a nuclear fusion project being constructed in France. The project specifically focuses on the Component Cooling Water System, which supplies about 100 loops.
L&T investigated four options to reduce the cooling water pressure at the pump outlet. These options were modeled as different scenarios in the model. An unexpected outcome from the selected option was used to reduce overall pumping costs by 12%.
The cooling water system consists of plate heat exchangers, horizontal centrifugal pumps, pressurizers, water polishing unit, and equipment that needs cooling; as well as the associated piping, valves, and instrumentation. For this particular project, cooling water pressure at the equipment outlet is restricted within certain values for each area that needs cooling.
Shifting of the heat exchanger and using a booster pump reduced outlet pressure to 0.05 MPag (7 psig), which was within the allowed 0.1 MPag (15 psig). However, it required them to add a booster pump to work with the existing three primary cooling water pumps to meet the requirements at PSB-129.