Hot spring water is used for hotels and various facilities in the hot spring resort towns of Japan. In districts where the volume of hot spring water is low because of excessive use, circulation systems are needed. Some hot spring waters contain large amounts of corrosive compounds, especially chloride ions, which can cause corrosion of the storage tanks in the circulation system. In some areas, the material of the tanks has been replaced with a high molybdenum austenitic stainless steel. No corrosion has been experienced since the installation two years ago. There are about 26,000 hot spring wells throughout Japan, most of which are used for supplying hot water to hotels, houses and various other facilities in the hot spring resort towns. The hot water is supplied by piping from the well. As the volume of the hot water is becoming insufficient in some districts, circulation systems are adopted, in which storage tanks are installed and excess hot water is returned to the tanks with pumps, as schematically shown in Fig. 1.
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