Day 16....Schedule showing 72 hours behind!

We installed the entire first stage nozzle rings today in addition to the upper half inner barrel. We are in the middle of a close out inspection of the aft end of the compressor casing and compressor to turbine spool piece to support the reassembly of the compressor discharge casing.
The night shift was not successful in dropping the bell mouth since they did not have the proper tools to inset the heli coils. they are a funky 1 1/2" 8 TPN. We spent the day expediting the insertion tools for reassembly tonight.
I hope to have the bell mouth closed and CDC set in place by morning!
*fingers crossed*

Day 15... Sunday to Relax

The turbine upper half casing is complete...all of the shrouds and nozzles were installed and ready for reassembly. The RO blades were delivered early morning and the bucket techs completed installing shortly after lunch. Lets keep out fingers cross that this replacement set purchased is not a lemon!

PowerPlantForum LOGO....this is it!

PowerPlantForum.com is the side project I've been working on with my college buddy... We had a slow start the past year but hopefully within the next few months, we'll go live with the web site. I truly believe in the website and is much needed for the industry. I don't think it will pay the bills but at least offer a means for everyone in the power industry to network and discuss about issues and best practices.

Day 14....Tip grinding and Shell installation

Its a saturday... Overtime pay day today! Its ironic that no one wants to work! We only had a crew of 8 ppls from 7am to 3pm... and from 3-7pm it was just the vendors and myself! The vendors set up their compressor tip grinding machine which is like a belt sander to shave a few mills off the tips of R13-R15 blades. This will allow thermal expansion and avoid rubbing the casing. We started putting shrouds and nozzles on the upper half turbine casing.. still needs to complete the installation of the 2nd stage nozzles. Guess they left some items for the night shift to complete!
We'll see how many ppls show for tomorrow!

Day 13 Things are starting to take shape

The turbine shell came back from the OEM today. The weld repair looks decent.. I hope that it will bolt right up. We removed the R0 blades today and inspected all for cracks. Two blades had cracks and another 6-7 showed signs of pitting and fretting wear. New replacements are on their way and should be ready for installation on Sunday morning. The third stage nozzles are installed and the guys are working on installing the second stages. We began mounting shourds to the turbine shell also. things are starting to come together.... hopefully we'll be able to gather all of the hardware removed for a smooth reassembly! Stay tuned!

Day 12.... Jacking the mouth!

We spent the better portion of the day jacking up the bell mouth 18inches inorder to remove the R0 blade of suspect. The #11 blade will need to be rotated to the horizontal joint in order to be extracted. Once removed, we will perform additional tests to determine the true condition of the R0 blade. Testing includes, ECI, Zyglo PT, UT, and possibly taking dental molds of the dovetails. Cross your fingers!

All three stages of buckets were installed last night in addition to the lower half shroud blocks.
Lower half inner barrel was installed.. and as you can see in the photos a shiny new groove was cut in the aft region for the shrouded S17 and EGV's!
The turbine shell should be on its way back from the GE repair shop tomorrow... but when?

Day 11. Reassembly...halfway there.

Chaos Chaos=CASH!!
We discovered fretting wear on one of the rotating blades which will need to be replaced. We are moving feverishly to source replacements!
We started installing the rotating buckets today and will wrap up this evening.
The mechanics will start installing shrouds and 1st nozzle and try to get the inner barrel back on the shaft. The stator vanes on the upper half were reinstalled yesterday along with shrouded S17 and EGv's! check out the cool modification!

Day 9... Schedule slipping. ouch!

Day 9...we'll we were short handed today due to the Holidays. The rotating buckets are being removed starting with the first stage. We performed Co2 cleaning on the upper half casings. Although it removed the oil deposits, the blades are not as shiny as a good old fashion spit shine.

Transformer Deluge System

This shot is not related to the project im working on but thought it would be neat to share with you. The station is performing a monthly compliance test of the fire suppression system.
This water deluge system will automatically activate if the heat detectors pick up around the transformer.
Awesome SHOT!....I feel for the guy getting soaked!

Day 8...Heros on a half-shell...TURBINE POWER!

Day 8 was very productive....we finally got the unit on its halfshell with the turbine and compressor section fully exposed. We started removing the upper half blades near the horizontal joints for shim and blade pinning. Mechanics started removing the nozzles and shrouds in order to facilitate removal of the buckets. Second stage nozzles were a pain in the A$$. We fought the second segment for about 6 hours...it finally came out.
See photos of the three rotating section aka. "buckets". The inner barrel was sent to the shops for machining along with the stator blades removed for pinning.
We finally pumped corning into the generator end shields and will set up the 24 hour air test. I hope it passes!

The unit is completly on its half shell..almost ready for cleaning and inspections!
As of now we are right on schedule....without any delays for the additional vendor work.

Day 7....almost apart.

Combustion section:
All of the combustion section hardware were removed. The Transistion pieces and flow sleeves in the photos need to be inspected and their condition recorded. No cracked transistion pieces!!

turbine section:
nothing much going on.. the upper half inner barrel was removed today

Compressor section:
This was the biggest challenge to get the combustion discharge casing off! it took over two shifts to break the bolts and we ended up cutting most of the nuts off.
sweetness. The forward compressor casing also came off today which was really easy to break considering the bolts were not exposed to high temperatures. Blades are exposed!! SCARY! good thing we didnt find anything seriously damaged.
Good job to the crew... they get to take Sunday day shift off for Easter.
We will be Co2 cleaning the unit that day so it'll be all up to the vendor.

Day 5.. Turbine EXPOSED!

Combustion:
Guys were in the street mating the combustion caps to the end covers..got the interns taking serial numbers for parts tracking. They dont seem very motivated...im feeling they might fudge things up but im ON IT *thumbs up*
all of the sleeves, liners and some TP's are removed.... ready to pull the CDC casing!
Turbine:
Night shift removed the turbine casing... its all wrapped up due to the inclement weather. Daym drainage systems was USELESS and created the 6th US GREAT LAKE on 15th street. I was flipping out since water was about to submerge the new turbine hardware!! even more $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ !!!!!

Generator:
My boy LArry told me late afternoon that he discovered some dusting on one of the stator bars. The dusting was caused by loose fiberglass ties rubbing against the frame. we are trying to source some RED EYE EPOXY to touch it up.. no biggie but im just VERY pissed since it was mentioned during the 11th hour of the generator work....right before we are ready to button it back up.

FME

FME=Foreign Material Exclusion
these guys are doing a pretty good job with FME.. see the yellow tape and red bags?
not too shabby!

Day 4 almost stripped.

Day four:
Generator: opened end shields and exposed windings. Looks okay.. thank GOD! We will find out once the inspection robot crawls into the entire body

Turbine:all of the piping and forward combustion cans have been removed. almost ready to take the CASING OFF! *gasp*

Crisis in the morning! When we opened one of the fuel nozzle boxes we noticed the interior packaging was damaged possibly caused by some careless handler. The fuel nozzles will need to be shipped out for testing and repair if necessary.

9 weeks of hell....day 2

I've officially entered the gauntlet of man vs. man vs. machine....oh yea mother nature too! We are at day two of a 9 week outage (24hours 7 days a week) of both turbines. The units have roughly 24,000 fired hours on the machine and requires an overhaul. Just as you would replace the timing belts on your car at 100,000miles, these power generating beasts require a hardware change out. I had the luxury of preparing for this long awaited outage now we will see how well the leg work paid off.
Photos are of the combustion turbine work where the turbine roof has been removed and 80% of the fuel piping.
In parallel with this work, we are preparing the generator for a "Magic" inspection which entails running a small robot into the field air gap for the inspection. The roof was lifted from the generator collector cab this morning and the mechanics are in the process of removing the end shields.
See the staging outside on 15th st. and the FDR... nice set up right?
Big shouts to the crew for being slightly ahead of schedule. keep the coffee and bagels coming in the morning..... stay tuned.
sorry about the poor quality photos with my phone.