Up Time Magazine- April/May 2008 - (Page 45) The Overlooked Gasket Incident In the late 1990’s, there was an emission of toxic H2S from a reciprocating compressor in the U.S. Gulf coast area. The local law firms had everybody in court. The piston rod had a run-out of 0.003” and the specification called for 0.002”– most of our readers know that it really doesn’t amount to a hill of beans if its 0.002” or 0.003”. Anyway, they sued the rod manufacturer. They sued the packing manufacturer. They sued everybody who had even a remote involvement. What really happened was never discussed in court, but I took a photo of the real culprit when I visited the user’s storehouse. They had never replaced the end face gasket on the packing case assembly and that’s where the leak originated. You might ask, who’s in charge of replacing these gaskets? It’s, of course, a person, quite irrespective of how a company is organized. People make things happen. rest of your working career, and pass it on to your successor. It may save lives. Heinz P. Bloch is a practicing professional engineer with over 45 years of industrial experience. Since his retirement from Exxon, he has been advising process plants on maintenance cost reduction and reliability upgrade issues. He is the author of 17 textbooks and over 350 other publications on reliability improvement, uptime extension and related topics. His most recent text- books deal with process gas compressors and related subjects. Bloch-Budris; “Pump User’s Handbook: Life Extension,” Fairmont Publishing Company, 2nd Revised Edition, (2006) - ISBN 0-88173517-5 Bloch-Geitner; “Machinery Uptime Improvement,” (2006) Elsevier- Butterworth-Heinemann, Stoneham, MA* (ISBN 0-7506-7725-2) VALVES AND TRAPS CAUSING EFFICIENCY LOSSES? Botched Steam Turbine Startup Then, as a final example of how people make things happen, let’s consider a botched steam turbine startup that cost a cool six million dollars. We all know that most large steam turbines have to be warmed up before you can let them go to full speed. “Joe College” was a new supervisor at a refinery that had recently changed hands. The new owner wanted to institute new thinking and higher profitability. Joe College was in charge of the utilities unit and the turbogenerator was to be started up. The procedure called for over three hours of warm-up and slow-rolling. Joe said that’s too long and made it known that he wanted the thing producing power in half the time. The result was predictable. The low mass rotor grew faster (temperature causes expansion of metal) than the much greater mass casing. In the interest of high efficiency, there is only a small clearance between the high-speed turbine blades and stationary turbine casing walls. Unless they heat soak long enough, the low mass rotor grows much faster than the casing and you have a rub. FRETT is at work and the steam turbine is a total wreck. Finally, and in conclusion, I’m sure the reader will agree that people make it happen. A thoughtful workforce is more productive than anything else. And in every one of the examples that I used here, or that I can possibly even think of, just one worker can make it happen. Please keep that in mind for the www.uptimemagazine.com ULTRASONIC VALVE & TRAP LEAK DETECTION IMPROVING PERFORMANCE FOR MORE THAN ✦ Enhance Efficiency ✦ Increase Output ✦ Lower Heat Rate ✦ Reduce Maintenance Costs ✦ Avoid Unnecessary Repairs 25 YEARS LDS provides a systematic, time-proven method of improving cycle efficiency. We use our patented ValveAlyzer® System,custom databases, test procedures, physical inspections, ultrasonic testing, and complex thermal analysis to provide significant plant wide savings. For more information, contact us today: 800-345-7157 www.leakdetect.com 45 http://www.leakdetect.com http://www.leakdetect.com http://www.uptimemagazine.com
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