Sea Chest’s Ubiquitous Antifouling Separator System

Zumwalt-class destroyer’s engine and equipment are cooled using heat exchangers and sea water pumped through them. It is mission critical for this equipment to be adequately cooled during operation. This sea water is drawn from sea chests, which utilize geometry in order to decrease eddies and non-laminar flow along the hull. The current sea chest design is only using the grate on the hull surface to filter larger objects and the pumps are pulling the water directly from the top of the chest. Some chests on the vessel have an air outlet between the pump inlet and the hull opening; the air outlets do not have a vacuum pump. These factors are leading to debris and air to be pulled through the pump, potentially damaging equipment. There is a filter between the pump and heat exchanger that also becomes clogged. Additionally, there does not appear to be any active microbe management being implemented, so the heat exchanger and water system must be back flushed and maintained often. Lynntech proposes to develop a novel multi-phase separator which will filter out macro sized debris (ice, bubbles, plants, shells, wood, etc.). Additionally, active antifouling methods will be explored and evaluated for integration into the separator system and ship infrastructure which will focus on filtering out micro sized debris, reducing microbes in the water. The combination of the two methods will increase equipment reliability and decrease manual maintenance and their associated costs.