A major steam turbine manufacturer had the time needed to change its test rig set-up significantly reduced from six weeks to a few hours, following the installation by Iconsys.
Testing is carried out on 1/10th scale steam turbine blades in a large pressure vessel. The vessel uses a compressed mixture of air and refrigerant gas to simulate steam and tests the components at low and high pressures.
Iconsys supplied and installed a new 4 MVA transformer, 3.1 MW water-cooled medium voltage VSD and motor. The installation involved removing the existing motor with concrete plinth and designing and supplying a new bed plate to fit the new motor, plus accurate laser alignment once it was installed with the new coupling.
Iconsys installed all the new power and control cabling, together with a new safety PLC and HMI to control the motor, as well as the necessary safety gate interlocks and access system. Speed control from the old system was by means of a physical gearbox changeover, which took time to change from low pressure to high pressure testing. The changeover involved replacing the gearbox of the motor so that it could drive the compressor to achieve high or low pressure as required.
“Three companies were asked to tender for the contract to improve the application. Iconsys offered us a lead time that was 10 weeks lower than the other bidders.
We can ramp up or down easily and the motor is working well within its capacity, so we have all the power we need. Taking away the gearboxes means we can make changeovers much quicker than before, allowing us to move between low pressure testing and high pressure testing in a couple of hours rather than the weeks it took previously.”
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