Rice Blasting of Turbine and Compressor Rotors

If I can't say "uncooked rice," I guess I'll just have to say "cooked." This would be one sloooow process, but the final finish would probably be pretty good....

It all depends on how hard and sticky the substances are that need to be removed. Rice, like walnut shells, should be a viable blasting medium. After all, you don't want to abrade the base metal too much.

I have not heard of it being used before. Dry ice is a nice way to go, and leaves no mess to clean up.... Walnut shells are pretty common.

What are you trying to clean off? Normal rust and dirt, or stuck on polymers??

I have been working in steam turbines repair business since 1992 but nothing is known for me about the rice blasting of steam turbines parts. I deal with cleaning/blasting of turbine part on daily basis but what we use for this activity is the aluminium oxide and rarely, the glass balls. Recently we tried the dry ice blasting but this method is not efficient enough and part surfaces are not as clean as using what I wrote above. Please be so nice and explain why it is important for you to use rice

The OP is referring to introducing a foreign material into the inlet of a running bird roaster to clean it out. Sort of like water washing a steamer.

I suppose that is one interpretation of the OP, but I don't think so.

I got the impression that he was talking about a turbine or a gas compressor that was apart using rice as a blasting medium....

There are no diaphragms in a gas turbine... There are in steam turbines and gas compressors. He is talking about blasting diaphrams as well as rotors.

He is also comparing to spent catalyst. No one puts spent catalyst in the inlet of a gas turbine.

Right on Steve S and thanks, that is exactly what I was referring to. I have experience of sand (shows my age), grit (too agressive), glass bead (nice but not readily available here), spent catalyst (possibility), C02 (too slow, but nice), cement etc, but no experience of rice and this has been suggested to me as a good alternative. I know that some vendors mix rice husks with walnut shells for gas turbine compressor cleaning, so I guess it is possible, was just hoping someone had some experience of it for general purpose blasting of rotors and diaphragms of large steam turbines and gas compressors.. OP

No he is not, why would he refer to a bird roaster as "large turbine and compressor rotors, diaphragms etc."

I stand corrected and mortified, obviously put mouth in gear prior to engaging brain.

I would suggest doing a search for Newsome and Works, I think out of Ohio or Arco out of New Jersey, give one of those people a call, They are both heavily involved in the business of power generation blasting. I would be surprised if one of them hasn't tried rice at one point.

Of course in the end analysis time is usually the compromise. If you blast on a part long enough with anything you will do damage.

To all of you that replied - thank you.

I will be doing a test within a few weeks and will let you know the results.

The OP.

Report back - rice was not aggressive enough to remove "salt" deposits from steam turbine rotor blades or diaphragms. Worked well on lightly "flash" rusted parts with good smooth finish. Resorted to conventional blasting materials.

Thank you so much for taking the time to update us!!

Dear All., Good day .. My name is N Lakshminarayanan Specialist Rotating Equipment at Kuwait National Petroleum Company, kuwait. I happen to c that some discussion hd taken place abt Rice Blasting. wish to highlight that we r using this technique to clean rotors & casings of Turbo Machinery almst since 1993. Had used this technique for the FIRST time ever(1993) in my previous company in india when we were overhauling the Syn Gas Compressr Turbine of 22 mw size. We got a great result as Turbine Efficiency improved by 12 to 15% resulting in a large quantity of Steam flow reduction. Here at KNPC we hv used it during overhauls &v hv observed the positive Results. Use the drive Air at about 80 to 100 Psi & if Conventional blasting nozzle is not effective redesign it . Raw normal Rice. We use abt 250 kg of Rice for a single cleaning. Laks Q8

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