Case Study on APH Lub Oil Flushing (1x500 MW NTPC Korba)

By: Rajeev Lalwani PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION A 500 MW unit boiler consumes 1000 TPH primary and secondary air to burn 300 TPH coal. In order to improve to efficiency of boiler specific heat carried by flue gases is transferred to secondary and primary air by air pre-heaters. Two numbers of secondary and two numbers of primary, bi-sector type rotary air pre-heaters are provided. Each APH has separate lub oil system for its guide and support bearing. Acid cleaning and lub oil flushing of system is carried out to clean the lines of these lub oil systems before trial run of air heater. To remove dirt and debris free from lub oil lines, acid cleaning is done by HCl. Lub oil flushing is completed in two stages, bypassing bearing and thru bearing. Customers like NTPC, NSPCL are demanding mechanical impurities and moisture lesser than 100 ppm to declare completion of oil flushing and hence takes more time to meet the criteria.

ANALYSIS SAPH (B) guide bearing lub oil flushing started on 17/09/2009. Oil used for lub oil flushing was diverted from 1x500 MW Birsinghpur site having 250 ppm moisture and 400 ppm mechanical impurity. The size of filter of oil system is 60 micron and the analysis of oil done by 0.45 micron filter to find the mechanical impurities. So the mechanical impurities lies between 60 micron to 0.45 micron could be removed by centrifuge only. A centrifuge of mandatory spares for MDBFP oil flushing was kept in clarifier mode for oil purification. Atmospheric temperature was decreasing day by day due to winter and decreasing the purification efficiency of centrifuge. The available centrifuge was not equipped with built-in heater. So two numbers of stress reliving heating coils (16 gauge, 20 amp each) were wrapped on suction line of lub oil system and maintained 80 o C temperature. A temporary tank (reservoir) is required to start the first stage (bypassing bearing) oil flushing. Earlier a lower half of 200 lit drum was used as a reservoir filled approx 100 lit oil. The time consumed in flushing can be

minimized by using small quantity of oil. So a 275x400 mm pipe was blanked at one end used as reservoir to minimize the oil used and reduced purification time.

RESULT The lab analysis w.r.t time shown in fig 1.

Centrifuge without heater Centrifuge with heater Bypassing flushing declared Thru Bearing Flushing Declared

PPM

Connection of lub oil lines thru bearing was done.

Fig. 1

SOLUTION The following suggestions are made to speed up the purification of oil during flushing: 1. Lesser viscosity (SAE 68 or 46) oil should be used for both (thru and bypassing bearing) flushing. 2. Centrifuge should be used to speed-up the purification of oil. 3. While flushing oil temperature should not be less than 80 oC.

4. For rapid heating the oil, stress relieving (SR) heating coil can be used on suction lines of lub oil systems. 5. Never use SR heating coil without its control system. 6. Do not heat oil up to the flash point. 7. Centrifuge has to be cleaned every day. 8. Maintain extra cleanliness during sample collection. 9. Run both pump together during flushing. 10. To avoid starvation in pumps during initial run top up the oil accordingly in reservoir.

SAPH Guide Bearing Lub Oil Flushing Arrangement (Bypassing Bearing)

Arrangement for heating oil using SR heating coil.