This damage is another demonstration that when you try to contain a lot of energy (power plant, blast furnace, oil refinery, ion battery, etc.) things can go horribly wrong.
Note that photos 11, 12 and 17 show holes in brick walls. That means parts flew off the shaft with enough momentum to fly through brick walls. I got a BS in Electrical Engineering in 1971. I was in the last class that had to take the rotating machinery (motors and generators) course. I still remember the professor explaining that whenever he was in a plant witnessing its startup, he would discretely move to one end of the plant so that he was in line with the shaft. He would never stand next to a unit because if something goes wrong the parts fly sideways.
Bob Ciminel posted 25 photos with the comment: "Iranshar Thermal Power Plant, 2009 (two 64 MWe units.) High rpm, superheated steam, hydrogen, hot oil, what could possibly go wrong?"
[64mw is a rather small unit. Several comments mention the failure of an overspeed control to cause this disaster.]
Bob Ciminel: Could be an overspeed event caused the coupling to fail, or the coupling failed and caused overspeed. Here’s what I think: they closed the generator breaker 180 degrees out of phase or auto sync failed.
[Since the third photo shows that the generator flew apart, I think an overspeed broke the coupler. If the coupler broke, the turbine should overspeed, but not the generator.]
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Bonus:
Another example of the power of the energy contained in high-preassure steam.
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| Doris H. Webb posted Remember when the Hot Reheat Line blew up ? Ralph L Storms: I was there when it happened. It was really bad! I never seen so much asbestos floating in the air on the turbine floor. The exhaust fans were pulling it outside as much as they could, but it was still hard to see. We weren't wearing any protection either and the next day people showed up for cleaning it up wearing yellow suits and breathing devices! WOW! I remember that a big valve was thrown into Sabine three boiler and made a big dent in the boiler plate! I think it was 1979 too. Nice picture. OV Mcneil: I remember Doris. Thank the Lord no one was killed or injured! Don Zierold: OV Mcneil sadly it occurred again in The west in the 80s. Several died. Same p11 seamed pipe same fabricator. Don Zierold: Mohave hot reheat. I think it was owned by southern cal Edison. The sh lines were p22 usually seamless. Yes the rh line split and filled the control room with steam. Don Zierold: You like something positive to come out of a issue. These failures made inspections of high temperature piping in power plants a routine requirement. Many potential issues were found prior to failure and corrected Roy Risinger shared William B. Hearn: Mt. Storm lauched a section of Main Steam line from one of their boilers through the penthouse roof and landed on a truck in the parking lot. Engineer I worked with at Mitchell dad worked at Mt. Storm. Ron Simons: A lot of plants had that failure of seamed HRH piping. I recall during our unit outages they removed the insulation and inspected the piping to verify it wasn't seamed pipe. Only time we looked forward to an outage. William B. Hearn: Lines were seamed pipe. Mitchell #3 HRH piping was replaced with seamless from the boiler header to the turbine. We also replaced a “T” in the Main Steam header that was fabricated out of rolled plate with a forged “T” after an inspection showed deep internal cracking. They flew the header in and out with a helicopter. Lot of work slowed to watch the event. I believe this was an issue mostly with CE boilers. Tom Howard: William B. Hearn B&W as well. Terry Edwards: Scary stuff. Mojave Gen Sta had a RH rupture. Killed some guys. William B. Hearn: Terry Edwards if I remember correctly the line blew through the Control Room and killed 7. Frank Romano: The culprit was Flow Accelerated Corrosion. The Mohave and Pleasant Prairie failures started an industry-wide inspection movement in steamlines that operated under certain parameters. By the way, the failure in that picture has to be the Cold Reheat line as the Hot Reheat would be much thicker than that. Byron Fultz: Love this site. Let's remember that we work in a bomb that is detonating 24-7 ! |
Another Bonus: A large hydropower plant harnesses a lot of energy as well.
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| Cesar Lucas posted Sayano - Shushenskaya Accident at Russia's Biggest Hydroelectric 2009 August 17 [Some comments point out that it didn't have any surge tanks.] |
Another overspeed failure. Note that the shaft is completely missing. Other photos show parts of the shafts in out on the floor, in a stairwell, etc. It is one thing to throw a few turbine blades, it is other thing to throw parts of the shaft.
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| tathasta (source, several comments about why didn't any of the overspeed limit controls work.) |
I assume this is an example of metal fatigue. I wonder what kind of damage this causes.
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| Andrew Krock posted Lost this chunk at full speed a few years back. Don Conner: I was walking by a LP Turb one day when the shroud ring decided to let go. A piece went up through the rupture diaphragm and bounced around the the ceiling joists and landed 30 ft from me. Lots of noises and vibration. I went into overspeed to the control room. Dan McQuade: I’m all too familiar with this kind of failure. Most of the repair ends up being the collateral damage downstream. Ryan Bickford: I heard it was vibrating so bad in the control room that the operator could barely hit the turbine trip buttons. Doug Elam: I'm surprised the turbine didn't trip on unbalance. There must have been a step change in balance level. Linda Maust-Jacobs: Doug Elam typically vibrations are an operator intiated trip.... as the turbine goes through critical speeds and elevated vibrations during roll up..... Jeremy Benson: I actually have seen in my experience a HP turbine peel the shrouds like that and continue running fine. They shut down the turbine because it wasn’t putting out the same power. Figured something must be wrong. Opened it up and all the shrouds had peeled off Mike Brubaker: We threw three blades in 1993. Two destroyed our condenser tubes. One exited the casing and buried itself 36 inches in a high density concrete wall. Flooded over a million gallons. Twisted the shafts Blew the generator off the shaft. We were down for a year. Fermi2 Robert Savage: Was at BOF upgrade. Came in monday in mtr room of I D fan & it's quiet. Mill says fan cut lose over week end. Piece of fan blade tore thru fan housing,1 side of mtr bldg., thru the web of a beam,out other side of bldg.,accoss the street, thru the side of our trailer,mill guys said likely ended up in lake mich about 1/4m away.I said **^*€£•••* how fast was it going. They said 700-800 mph. Went into our trailer bout 2' above head if at break or lunch.Rob Lowther: Robert Savage I seen an ID fan completely come apart at the TBBH at US Steel Gary Works. Peices Came through the steel housing like it was a beer can and completely demolished a cinder block wall about 20 ft away. It also broke the gearbox and steam turbine casing in half. |
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| Wayne Cochran commented on Andrew's post Crystal River South Plant. Messed up my holiday. Grrrrrr. |
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| Michael Saxby commented on Andrew's post Lodi California |
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| Kasey Artmayer commented on Andrew's post, cropped |
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| Mike Hamlet commented on Andrew's post Seen a few in my day. |
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| Brian Taylor posted Mountaineer threw blades 4 years back. [2022-4 = 2018] [Given the unit is huge (1.3gw), that has to be an expensive booboo. Some of the comments indicate that this is what happens if a lot of water gets into the steam supply.] Brian Kroeker: wow that must have shaken the building. |
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