Manufacturing and installation of turbine condensers
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Dear experts, I would like to ask why, in steam turbines, the cooling water pipes are usually installed on-site through welding? Why not install it right away after it’s manufactured in the factory? In the past, for heat exchangers used in the chemical industry, the tube bundles were assembled during operation, which made on-site construction quite difficult; with such a large amount of expansion welding involved, the challenges of manufacturing on-site were enormous.
Dear experts, I would like to ask why, in steam turbines, the cooling water pipes are usually installed on-site through welding? Why not install it on site right after it’s manufactured in the factory? In the past, for heat exchangers used in the chemical industry, the tube bundles were assembled in the manufacturing plant, as it is difficult to carry out such work on-site; with such a large amount of expansion welding involved, it would be extremely challenging to manufacture them on site.
Is there a specialist in steam turbines who can help me resolve my doubts?
You haven’t considered the issue of stiffness, have you? For turbines that operate in a pure condensation mode, there’s also the problem of exhaust volume; condensers are usually quite large. Condensers that operate under vacuum have many internal heat exchange tubes. If such units are to be installed on-site as complete sets, there are two issues: one is transportation – very large vehicles are required – and the other is that the stiffness of the equipment isn’t sufficient to meet the transportation requirements. Even if it were possible to make the equipment meet these transportation requirements, the additional cost would be high, and generally, the client won’t accept that. Of course, there are also small units whose condensers come as complete sets, but in such cases the condensers are generally not very large. It is easy to transport