Water ingress into the turbine oil tank
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This post was last edited by sean816 on 2011-6-8 at 15:03. Dear experts, the medium-power turbines used in our factory are suffering from severe water contamination in their oil tanks. We have come up with a solution: we will contact the manufacturer to have nitrogen added to the turbine’s bearing box, along with an exhaust system, similar to those used in the seal systems. What do you all think? Is it okay?
It is feasible to adjust the pressure, but it’s a bit of a waste of nitrogen.
I think the original poster is using a temporary solution; I suggest adopting a fundamental approach by figuring out the source of the moisture in the fuel tank and sealing it off at its origin
It’s feasible if there’s enough space. Last month we dealt with one unit in which the shaft seal gas kept leaking into the bearing box; about 6–8 liters of water would drain from the oil tank each week. We considered introducing air or nitrogen, but upon checking the bearing box we found no space for that. So we opted to add a vent pipe at the inlet of the shaft seal cooler (where the shaft seal gas signals converge). This increased the flow velocity at the fan outlet, and as a result, the shaft seal gas no longer leaked into the bearing box. The problem of water entering the fuel tank has been completely resolved now
It can be used by adding two small pipe fittings to the bearing housings, near the front and rear steam seals, to introduce nitrogen there.
In most cases, the shaft end steam seals get mixed into the lubricating oil; we have encountered this issue here as well. If there is enough space, introducing isolated nitrogen is a good solution
This kind of nitrogen isolation should be added, but the nitrogen pressure needs to be adjusted properly; too low a pressure is ineffective, while too high a pressure causes oil to appear at the breathing ports.
Also, the fuel tank needs to have water removed from it regularly; it’s impossible for there to be no water at all in it.