Ropar thermal unit closed due to high turbine vibrations

Posted On: 04-Aug-2010 03:07:46 AM By: Vinod Kumar Gupta Font Size: Increase Font Size Decrease Font Size
Ropar thermal unit closed due to high turbine vibrations
Ropar thermal unit closed due to high turbine vibrations

Ropar: 210 MW unit no.1 of Ropar thermal plant has been closed for more than 10 days due to high turbine vibrations. The unit tripped on last Saturday morning due to high vibrations in the turbine. The unit has been opened today to check the turbine bearings. According to sources it will take at least five days to bring back the unit. Member generation of Powercom had visited the plant on Sunday to have first hand information.

It may be mentioned that this particular unit remained under shut down due to this very fault from May 6 to 14.The vibrations were then noticed immediately after the unit was commissioned after scheduled maintenance from April 5 to May 4 by BHEL.

According to sources even after the unit was revived on May 14 the vibrations remained on higher side than the permissible limit, but the unit was allowed to continue due to impending paddy season. The tripping setting was adjusted slightly on higher side to avoid tripping during paddy season.

After more than two months unit started giving trouble and unit tripped four times in a span of two days.Thereafter it was decided to recheck the turbine bearings to diagnose the trouble.Even earlier the plant engineers failed to find the reason for high turbine vibrations.It has been found that now the clearances of bearing no. 1 have increased.The inspection of other bearings is in progress. The whole things will be known after the opening of IP rotor .