A coal fired power plant typically has several coal mills feeding fluidized coal dust to fire each turbine. The gearboxes these coal mills utilize can have high levels of particulate contamination as fine coal dust passes by shaft seals into the high viscosity gear lubricant.
The challenge was to extend gearbox life to avoid premature rebuilds which can cost over $600,000 not including down time. The plant also wanted to switch to a synthetic oil so eliminating the need for annual drain and refill intervals was crucial because the synthetic was triple the price of the original oil in service.
The plant had found that mobile filter carts would reduce the contamination level but after removing the cart the contamination quickly returned. So the dedicated FSL off-line system was installed on one unit and the ISO codes dropped from X/21/16 to X/15/11 over several days and after 60 days the ISO Code was stable at X/13/11. Thusly the plant decided to monitor the oil condition and only change if the additive package was depleted instead of annually. It was also determined that running on clean synthetic oil saved enough money (based on AMP draw reductions) to pay for the installation of the FSL unit and change to the synthetic oil.
What HY-PRO provided:
FSL Offline FIltration
