Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

  • Congratulations LittleInch on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

any experience with PCM for emergency shower?

Status
Not open for further replies.

davefitz

Mechanical
Joined
Jan 27, 2003
Messages
2,927
Location
US
There are cases where a large plant , located in a cold remote area, needs to have installed an emergency shower, remote from the electric power source. The cost of providing the cabling for the large , instant power demand for a large water heater ( sufficient for the ANSI Z358.1 standard of 15 minutes at 20 gpm) usually seems excessive for the applcation.

As an Alternative , has anyone used a lower power source to maintain a PCM phase change material at 95 F ( say, 100 watt heater), and use the PCM to heat the cold influent to tepid conditions during the emergency event? . The power supply would be rated to very low values in such a case. The PCM would have a loop of metallic pipe embedded in it. The size the PCM rervoir to be sufficient to warm 50 F cold water to 90 F for the required 300 gallon total emergency flow.
 
Why not store 300gal of hot water and use a safety shower mixing valve. You can recirculate water and UV treat to prevent bio-gunk.

I've seen and envied such systems in skidded packages after having installed a gazillion kW of instant heaters at a plant.

This is also better for haz areas.

 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top