Steam cycle chemistry question.
Background: This is a 2x1 550 MW merchant power plant with 7FA gas turbines, two IHI heat recovery steam generators (HRSGs), and a D-11 steam turbine, with auxialiaries. Heat removal is by forced draft cooling tower.
We have been using an excessive amount of...
Post-outage update. My final post on this issue.
11 main condenser tubes had to be plugged. Several of the plugged tubes had circumferential cracks on the bottom half. The cracks were located midway between tube support plates.
Management asked the O&M tech assigned to the condenser to...
It's my understanding that on a smaller machine using a PMG type brushless exciter, a PSS is not very useful. The use of PMG excitation introduces large magnetic time constants that prevent the PSS from quickly adjusting the generator field and compensating.
Larger machines that use static...
One other massive hurdle that nuclear needs to overcome: Bean-counters. The power industry has undergone a massive shift in the past decade - from the mindset of a utility with a guaranteed profit (no matter how inefficiently run), to that of electricity as a real-time trading commodity...
If you mean can a fission reactor be used to start a fusion reaction, the answer is no. The temperatures required to fuse hydrogen nuclei (millions of degrees)would melt any fuel and cladding assembly.
As others have stated, the most promising approach is the donut shaped magnetic confinement...
If you are interested in overseas jobs, you might try this site: http://www.powerplantpro.com/
The middle east, lacking nuclear reactors, has no particular use for navy nukes, just seasoned steam plant personnel. They burn a lot of fuel oil and natural gas to cogen (power and desalination)...
Hi cub3bead - I believe I've seen the coatings that you are referring to advertised in some of the trade publications. I've no personal experience with them however. They sound sweet though!
So you know, the condensate specific conductivity is still quite high - about 25 umho, although...
Hi bimr,
The chem results were not conclusive. We had samples of raw water, demin water, and condensate sent off to several labs for analyses. Some showed slight hardness, some didn't. Some showed colloidal silica in the raw water, while others didn't.
No tests ever showed *reactive*...
Thanks cub3bead...
It should not have taken so long to find a minor condenser tube leak, but everyone here was focused on the colloidal suspect as well.
We've spent several thousand dollars on regenerant chemicals, demin trailers, the MMF and RO trailers. Not to mention the huge hit we took...
UPDATE: This problem has been identified. But first...
Since the original suspected problem was colloidal silica getting through the demin train, the plant has installed temporary Multimedia filters and coagulant injection upstream. Then a trailer-mounted two-stage RO was brought in...
Hi and thanks for all the replies...
Our demin water tank has never been 'hit' by breakthrough - never tested above 5 ppb on the makeup, so that would not seem to be the source. It's gotta be colloidal or else left-over from construction.
To cub3bead:
1. We've begun performing tests on the...
Hi all,
We are experiencing a vicious and repetitious silica problem at this relatively new power plant. It has been an intermittent ongoing problem.
Plant design: 2x1 GE gas turbines into one GE steamer. HRSGs are triple pressure reheat. Demineralizer is Cation, anion and mixed bed. No...
