A Midwest power utility customer was experiencing increased vibration after a refurbished Condensate pump was reinstalled on-site. They reached out to Hydro Reliability Services to help troubleshoot the vibration issue and determine if it was a problem inherent to the equipment or the result of the refurbishment. Continue reading
News
Quality Inspection Uncovers Impending Short-Term Failure
Often, a simple shortcut or misstep in a pump maintenance procedure or rebuild can lead to unforeseen and excessive life cycle costs, or ultimately catastrophic failure.
1. A tension test can verify 100% perpendicularity and parallelism of components.
When an end-user could not rotate its critical boiler feed pump shaft to align the pump to its driver, a combined cycle plant contacted an aftermarket pump service provider to examine a problematic third-party pump rebuild, as well as remove, inspect, and repair the failing equipment.
Prior to disassembling the recently rebuilt pump, the aftermarket pump service provider performed a visual inspection to see if there was any evidence of incorrect assembly procedures. The most apparent defect was observed on the outboard side of the pump. The shaft sleeve should have .250” minimum clearance between its face and the labyrinth seal, but the sleeve had been rammed into the lab seal making the pump shaft impossible to turn.
Before shipping any rebuilt pump, it’s essential to perform a quality assurance check to confirm the shaft turns freely. However, in this case, a few critical steps may have been overlooked during the pump’s previous maintenance work.
Read the full article in the May/June 2022 World Pumps Magazine.
Field Testing Assesses Risk of Reducing Minimum Unit Load
With changes in the energy landscape, many older plants need to adapt to more flexible operation to fluctuating needs of the grid and remain economically viable. This flexibility often includes operation outside of the original design of the plant and its equipment.
A Midwest coal-fired power plant recently found themselves in this position. The plant had been designed for a minimum commercial load of 350MW, but they were considering reducing the load to 300MW. Plant engineering wanted to understand what risk operation at this low capacity posed to equipment reliability operation and life. The power producer contacted Hydro Reliability Services to develop an on-site test plan for their condensate, boiler feed booster, and boiler feed pumps to better understand how this operation would impact these critical pumps. Continue reading
Troubleshooting Axial Shuttling through Field Testing & Analysis
A nuclear utility had been observing axial shuttling on their three single stage, double suction Condensate Booster pumps. To better understand the circumstances driving this phenomenon, they asked Hydro Reliability Services to provide in-depth field testing of the equipment at different operating loads. Continue reading