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January 14, 2004 we asked:
"A boroscope inspection
of the main turbine oil reservoir at a major power plant
revealed paint chips in the reservoir, puddles of water,
red-iron oxide particles (rust) and babbitt material in
one of the main return lines. The babbitt can most likely
be attributed to a hydrogen fire that occurred more than
five years ago and wiped the bearings. As this fire occurred
in the summer and electricity prices were high, a flush
at that time was not performed."
"Actually the turbine lube
oil system has not been flushed in more than seven years.
Among other things, this has led to a concern that if
babbitt debris were to appear in a recent oil sample,
it would not be possible to tell if the babbitt is from
the fire five years ago or presently being generated by
bearing wear.
"The plant is currently
in a maintenance outage that will last for only a few
more weeks. The system definitely needs to be flushed
but the general feeling is that the babbitt has been in
the return line for five years and thus far has not caused
any problems - so why do it now? Likewise, it is believed
that the paint chips will be caught by the filters located
on the bearing supply line."
"Operations would like to
wait until the next outage (two years down the road) to
flush the system. Plant maintenance thinks it would be
wise to flush now. What would be your recommendation?"
Thanks to everyone
that participated in this Readers Challenge. We received
a great response. Below is this week's winner and some
of the other responses that we received.
This Week's Winner:
Mike Meeks, Reliability Engineer, Weyerhaeuser
Click
here to see the winning response.
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