Brine tank load testing

[jimmy2times]

Well everyday you learn something new as they say.

Today for me was brine tank load testing.

I remember when I was younger I listened to an old sea dog telling me how he could replicate fast acting action of a semi-conductor fuse with bucket of water of section of copper wire.

Today someone brought up subject of brine tank load testing. Never heard of this before, but I guess it took me back to that recollection mentioned above.

Working in marine shipping industry and today talking about load testing our generators with a load bank someone floated the idea of brine tank testing generators. Wow, never heard that one before.

So i googled it naturally, and found the D.I.Y make your brine tank load bank guide!!

http://waterstorage.tpub.com/TM-55-1930-209-14P-9-4/css/TM-55-1930-209-14P-9-4_166.htm

And thanks to internet brine load test in action at a ship quayside, a YouTube video,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAGhrOgo9Qs

In discussion today it was mentioned during acceptance of the ship when being built at shipyard, they made a 10MW brine tank load test of generators.

I’m just wondering what would be involved and how easy to repeat this testing. Sounds like stuff of dreams for our HSE guy!

Has anyone done brine load testing at this power level before? How controllable is the load?

We have an abundance of sea water next to ship, so that isn’t an issue

 

[catserveng]

At one point in my career a company I worked for had two "salt boxes". One at about 2MW and the other about 6MW, actual capacity was determined by how much salt in the water and how cool you could keep it. Shape of the plates also determine how easy it is to maintain and adjust load, along with the mechanism you use to raise and lower the plates into the tank.

I did a job on a Pacific island where our nice resistive/reactive load bank failed, the island power house had a salt box but the tank was rotted out, we ended up suspending the plates from a crane off a dock near the plant with a couple of small boats with outboard motors to circulate the water around the plates. It wasn't a "good" test, but it did put a decent load on the unit and the plant manager bought off on it, especially since getting another load bank would have been a 2-3 month ordeal and they wanted the unit in service ASAP.

I'm not sure how using a salt box would go over in today's safety environment, you have a lot of exposed energized conductor being dropped into a tank over (by design) highly conductive water. And maintaining a stable load is a challenge, requires pretty constant attention. We did experience a few "aw crap" moments using that test method. Eventually proper resistive load banks were purchased and then reactive units as well.

Most load tests I do these days require both a resistive and reactive load, the salt box is pretty much pure resistive load, so you'll need to make sure it will meet you needs.

Hope that helps,
MikeL.

 

[waross]

I was putting in a set for a business that had one large, critical, motor that did not run continuously.
The set was sized to start that motor but most of the time ran at about 10% capacity.
The vendor threatened to void the warranty unless we did a five day load test to seat the engine rings.
I used six 50 Gallon plastic barrels with truck leaf springs for electrodes. (two per phase.)
I was able to set up on a substantially built roof to provide safety by isolation.
It used a lot of water.
You may want to discuss the wisdom of dropping a weighted plastic tarpaulin down the side of the ship to avoid as much as possible stray currents passing through the hull.
If the hull becomes part of the circuit it may or may not lead to rapid corrosion.
Bill
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"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter