Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction has successfully completed fabrication of the world’s largest multi-stage flash (MSF) evaporator.
The company announced on 1 December 2011 that it completed fabrication of the first of the eight evaporators for the Ras Al Khair Phase 1 seawater desalination plant and shipped the unit from the company’s Changwon Plant to Saudi Arabia. The company won the order for the plant for US$ 1.76 billion from Saline Water Conversion Corporation in September 2010.
The MSF unit is capable of producing 91,000 m³/d of desalinated water, a volume enough for consumption by 300,000 people, making it the largest unit capacity in the world. The evaporator is also the world’s largest in size, measuring 123 m long x 33.7 m wide, and weighs 4,150 t.
Transporting the evaporator on land requires 30 tractor-trailers with a combined total of 627 wheels.
The previous record for the world’s largest evaporator was the unit for the Shuweihat Phase 2 seawater desalination plant, which will be capable of producing 76,000 m³/d upon Doosan’s completion of the project. By successfully shipping the evaporator for Ras Al Khair, the company has set a new record.
Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction will transport the evaporator to the project site by sea for 25 days and will install the unit at the site in late December. The company plans to complete the entire project by March in 2014.