Power Generation
Chapter President
Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 6,102
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From: Red Deer, Alberta Canada
Turbines by Aldersyde? Thats about 15 years late! The old MAGCAN project failed down there because of the cost of power. Its now a recycling plant or something now, but it was going to be a a 5 building magnesium plant.
Wow, you know your numbers J.
The Series 4 wauks have been pretty reliable, except for some soft cams. The old GU (naturally aspirated) were very reliable as they would go a good 50,000 hours on a bottom end. Anyway, lets not bore the masses and have coffee more often!! LOL
Wow, you know your numbers J.
The Series 4 wauks have been pretty reliable, except for some soft cams. The old GU (naturally aspirated) were very reliable as they would go a good 50,000 hours on a bottom end. Anyway, lets not bore the masses and have coffee more often!! LOL
The Guru
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 6,589
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From: Airdrie Canada
Sounds like one of the turbines that I'm working on right now. You could feel the ground shaking about 100ft away. At that point you don't need any special equipment. It broke a few of the fittings on the feed valves causing it to shutdown. The site vib equipment was offline as the time.
Registered User
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 7,780
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From: Airdrie, Alberta
The little 30 MW GE I was on at Whitecourt had a constant vibe problem. Once it got up to speed, the machine and the building had the same frequency and the whole building would hum at a very loud level. Go out on the turbine deck, the slab the turbine on was shaking about half the speed and about quarter as bad as the floor connected to the building.
Registered User
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 7,129
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From: The Great White North
You guys aint seen nothing until youre standing beside a 400 MW unit trying to get up and running. The rumble from the inrush of gas is pretty wild. The Sheerness units are basically 12 stories high and they are essentially suspended from the roof.
The Guru
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 6,589
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From: Airdrie Canada
How about working on one right next to the axial compressor and it surges and shuts down. Seen a couple engines lock-up at full power, thats messy and crazy stuff. Sorry guys, just a normal day in the patch. We are so lucky to get to work on the machines that we have just in this province. There are some pretty neat stuff out there.
Registered User
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 5,426
Likes: 1
From: Fort McMurray, Alberta
I cant match your stories, but I did have a turbo blow up at somewheres around 80 or 90 thousand RPM,, that was quite the bang,, LOL
Just joking guys,, I would love to hang out and watch some of this stuff, I love machinery
Kevin
Just joking guys,, I would love to hang out and watch some of this stuff, I love machinery
Kevin
Chapter President
Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 6,102
Likes: 2
From: Red Deer, Alberta Canada
The little 30 MW GE I was on at Whitecourt had a constant vibe problem. Once it got up to speed, the machine and the building had the same frequency and the whole building would hum at a very loud level. Go out on the turbine deck, the slab the turbine on was shaking about half the speed and about quarter as bad as the floor connected to the building.
Registered User
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 7,780
Likes: 0
From: Airdrie, Alberta
I was tempted to call you to come do some analysis on this machine. They had 4 mil displacement when it was at 3600 rpm at 28 MW, wrecked the rear bearing on the turbine and the front on the generator. They were just guessing at the weight changes. Which really sucks when its a 12hr process to shut down the boiler, cool down the turbine, we do our 15 minute job of popping the man door and adding a weight, button it up, couple hours to get the boiler going and reheating the turbine and bring it up to speed and then load it. At least they didn't give us crap for sitting in the trailer when this was going on.
Registered User
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 318
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From: Ab. Canada
Yeah-1478 comes to mind as the magic HP # for a 7042. I think the newer 7044s are a little more. There's supposed to be a 7044 on a screw a few miles north of me-I'd like to have a look at that as well. Pretty hard to beat an old-style VHP-seems like every mechanic has worked on one at least once in his life. GU stands for naturally aspirated, doesn't it? Area I did some relief work in once had a 3521 natural and a 2 throw Ariel as a field booster. Pretty strange to see it without a turbo hanging off it.
The 3520 was packaged by Toromont alright. It's sitting beside a 3516-one is running a recip, one is running a screw-I can't remember which one now does what. That whole plant has an interesting history that's way too long to detail here-suffice to say lots of iron has been and gone there over the years. When I relieved there, they had 3 F18s in the field on huge cylindered 2 throw Ariels. Your vibration meter would have gone ballistic in one of those-your vision almost blurred standing in the right part of the grating when the engine was at 1800.....
The 3520 was packaged by Toromont alright. It's sitting beside a 3516-one is running a recip, one is running a screw-I can't remember which one now does what. That whole plant has an interesting history that's way too long to detail here-suffice to say lots of iron has been and gone there over the years. When I relieved there, they had 3 F18s in the field on huge cylindered 2 throw Ariels. Your vibration meter would have gone ballistic in one of those-your vision almost blurred standing in the right part of the grating when the engine was at 1800.....
It's all junk though, give me a 3521G with a good old fashioned mag anyday.
Registered User
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 406
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From: Alberta.......
Hello Don-long time no see! I think continuous #'s all the time, and then usually round down a few percent to battle with the engineers about package capabilities... I'm with you on the electronics-when I was still running Ajaxes our mechanical outfit tried to get us to convert them to electronic governors. Definitely would be a test of the vibration dampening in the circuit boards and actuators!
The outfit we use now speaks lovingly of our 2895. They like the thicker liners etc. as compared to a 3521. Of course you give up 130 hp as well. Poco liked them so much, they pretty much standardized on them around these parts. Enerflex-packaged 2895GSIs and Ariel JGR4 compressors-all cylindered virtually the same except for the odd field booster here and there. If they needed to move more gas, they moved another one in. Awesome for parts interchange etc. The only real concession to modern technology on ours is a Murphy Power ignition to replace the mag.
I'm with you on the electronics-when I was still running Ajaxes our mechanical outfit tried to get us to convert them to electronic governors. Definitely would be a test of the vibration dampening in the circuit boards and actuators!The outfit we use now speaks lovingly of our 2895. They like the thicker liners etc. as compared to a 3521. Of course you give up 130 hp as well. Poco liked them so much, they pretty much standardized on them around these parts. Enerflex-packaged 2895GSIs and Ariel JGR4 compressors-all cylindered virtually the same except for the odd field booster here and there. If they needed to move more gas, they moved another one in. Awesome for parts interchange etc. The only real concession to modern technology on ours is a Murphy Power ignition to replace the mag.
For every decent idea they had, they seemed to have about 6 stupid ones.
The Guru
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 6,589
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From: Airdrie Canada
The aero engine seem easier to work on. You can pull an engine in and out in a day. Back making money. The aero industry sure did a good job engineering out most of the bugs and they have decent enclosures. Luke, you guys put a building around the machines? Any cranes or hoists? How much space you allowing to work on them? I like outfits that do everything on the cheap. No space, no hoists, no air, no heat or A/C. They think these things run for ever. No consideration on who has to work on them. The little they save now, will bite them on the behind later on. Five recips running as back up, that should be fun to get everyone to run at the same time. Who thinks of the monthly start run test anyways? Thats just wears out the starter. Next issue is the switch gear to go from commerical power to apu power. Sometime it doesn't switch over right and trips the breakers. Good times buddy, good times. Chaos is cash.
Registered User
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 318
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From: Ab. Canada
Mike, how big are the jets you work on that load that quick?
All the ones I've been around take forever to come up ready to load and then they hunt a minute or two to get in sync with the grid.
All the ones I've been around take forever to come up ready to load and then they hunt a minute or two to get in sync with the grid.