Gland steam condenser mystery

Need a lot more info on the system, but my first impression would be no.. The condenser is contributing to the vacuum and the ejector alone is probably not enough.

But I could be wrong. I have been wrong before.

I would think that the best indication for the functioning of the gland seal system overall would be in the Oxygen content of the condensate from the main condenser. If you are not having a high oxygen problem in the condensate then you are probably ok. However, it is has also been my personal experience that when the peripheral equipment, such as the gland seal air ejector condensers, are poorly maintained, that there are many, many more perhiperial problems . . . so if you are operating it with it non-operational condition, I suspect that it will continue to be operated in such fashion, probably forever, and other more significant problems will slowly develop to the point that some catastrophe brings the whole shooting match to off line conditions.

So what I am saying . . . NO it is not ok to operate it that way!!! Even if you are NOT having problems . . . the plant must be maintained properly and it is in my humble opinion, you should fix it . . . and not seek the justification from your peers to operate your plant out of design.

Sorry, I have just spent to much time in plants that were poorly maintained. Remember you can pay for repairs now or you can pay a lot more for the same repair when the whole thing crumbles to a hunk of scrap metal.

OP didn't ask for it but GA it is. Well done, Ky.

The points we are missing here are relative to where is your problem? If the steam is leaking out of the glands you need to be careful that the condensing steam in that area doesn't find it's way back to the oil sump.

If you can't maintain pressure at the seals you have another problem.

If steam is blowing out of the vent at the gland condenser then you need to look at your cooling medium and check for leaks.

If you have added steam trap outlets to the condenser and they were not figured in the original design you probably wouldn't see a problem until one of them starts blowing through. You may be overloading the condenser.

Most of the condensing steam turbines have a steam air jet ejector for main condenser and only cooling water for gland steam condenser. You can provide a small vacuum pump for the gland steam condenser to be designed to work with the gland system For back pressure turbines it is common to vent the gland steam. If you size the gland steam condenser properly on steam and water box sides, ejector may not be required for it.

I feel that I must appologize to Sha Evans for being somewhat derogatory and condescending . . . I re-read my post and it was offensive . . . I appologize for coming across that way.

There is another aspect that has been a personal philosophy, having started out as an operator in a steam plant . . . that being that an operator is more than a "button-pusher, knob-twister, and valve-opener" . . . the operator is an "efficiency expert".

I loved and cared dearly for all the plants that I worked around . . . each plant was different . . . each had it own idosyncrasies . . . each was a work of art . . . and I was the man to make that art function to it's highest level of reliability and efficiency.

Each shift I toured my plant with a rag, flashlight, mirror, and what ever tools I could beg, borrow or steal and I looked for ways to improve my plant. I inspected and determined what was working properly and what was not.

I looked for that one thing that I could improve the operation of on each shift that would pay my salary or improve the overall safety, reliability or efficiency of the plant.

When the steam from the air ejector is NOT condensed to me it represents a huge loss of the beauty of the plant, pure water that is expensive is lost, safety of the plant is impacted to the integrated loss of component reliability in all the related subsystems, condensation on surrounding equipment does damage to things that are not immediately recognized, fogging in an area can make it unsafe for just normal access, slippery surfaces, development of electrical grounds and shorts . . .

I was the project engineer on rehabilitation on a plant that was treated just as described above . . . a work of beauty that when we tried to rehab it . . . several months and many millions of dollars into the project we converted from rehab to recycle . . . the plant was destroyed beyond economical recovery . . . what a terrible waste. Lots of people LOST their jobs!!!

So save that condensate . . . it may save your JOB!!!

nukesub629

Another GA from me. I would love to be a steam plant in my next life with you as the "efficiency expert", listening to every of my whims. I am no expert on the hardware but more interested in general with any thing to do with steam and its governing. It is good to see that some treat it as an art form and caress the hard ware with due respect. If this attitude would be applied to any technology, the world would be a better place and maintenance would not be a swear word but a medal, to be proudly worn.

Have you ever thought of placing salt pans in strategic places to identify increase in humidity and or leaks of any kind. Like I said I'm no expert but I could imagine that liquefying salt would be a good indicator of excess moisture, drips etc. Sorry if I insulted your intelligence with this suggestion, maybe it is standard procedure. It seems your mirror is doing that job quiet well at the moment.

Waste not want not, Ky.

If your condenser is not operating properly it may very well be fouled by corrosion or something stuck in the header assuming that you have a shell and tube arrangement. It is also possible that a cooling water valve is not fully open to it or that the condensate removal pipe is clogged or throttled back too much. A level should be maintained but I recall that being done often by a piping loop. It may also be that excessive steam is being supplied to the glands if this is a shutdown condition where you are maintaining a vacuum in the main condenser. I don't have a lot to go on from the info supplied so I don't know if this is shipboard application or land based so the cooling water quality, temperature and source is unknown. I do know that a fouled condenser will create such a problem as well as excessive steam supply to the glands as well as someone closing off the cooling water supply to the gland condenser in error.

THANKS ALL 4 you feedback..!!!Sorry quit busy to reply to the forum because handling a lot of troubleshooting issues....Actually the main issues now, they say that ejector itself can work without the steam condenser..and it prove because all this while the condenser badly clogged but the system run very well.

I am trying to answer this by simple logic, supposing that the case is of a back pressure turbine.This is an equipment we also have in our TG

Here I suppose the case is that the ejector is being used to draw steam into the GSC by vacuum. The steam fills the GSC. Now I suppose you are trying to vent out steam trapped in the GSC from a point after the GSC [ ie in the GSC condensate line]. In such case, You will not be able to maintain the GSC vacuum pressure[ which will go to +ve gauge pressure]. In such case, ejector will not work and gland steam will not be drawn, since vacuum pressure is not being maintained.

On the other hand, If we vent out the Gland steam from a point before entry to GSC [ as the system in our back pressure TG], It will work, if it is a back pressure turbine. This is because in a back pressure turbine, gland steam coming out has +ve gauge pressure. So venting out steam before entry to GSC will be better than venting out steam after GSC.

We have a back pressure steam turbine , which is blowing out steam from ends shaft seals...when we checked gland condenser functioning, ejoctor is blowing out steam from discharge and we have seen earlier ejctor motive steam pressure was higher than design...

What is the corrective action hile the machine is running?

LogicLover