A power company contacted us several months ago for help with a major water ingression issue in their gas turbine lube oil. At some points, the customer was draining up to 30 gallons of free water from a 3,300 gallon reservoir. The water ingression issue was caused by a leaking water cooler.
The power company was unable to fix the leaking water cooler until the next scheduled outage, but they had to do something to prevent further water ingression in the meantime. PFPUSA ended up supplying them a 50 GPM Vacuum Dehydrator to control the moisture issue until the customer’s scheduled outage. The dehydrator was able to keep the moisture content below 100 PPM and achieve an average ISO Cleanliness Code of 16/14/11.
A few weeks later, the customer shut down for their scheduled outage. At that time they contracted PFPUSA to remove the lube oil from the reservoir and transfer it to a temporary tank while they repaired the leaking coolers. We utilized one of our filter carts to transfer the lube oil from the reservoir into the temporary tank, which we also provided.
Once the reservoir was empty, we cleaned the reservoir by hand. Our service team removed several inches of sludge from the bottom of the reservoir. During the cleaning, our team documented several areas of rust build up on the reservoir floor and internal piping. This rust was removed and the areas marked for further monitoring.
Our service team did an amazing job cleaning up the reservoir, as you can see from the before and after pictures. The customer was extremely happy with the equipment and service we provided and would like us to come back during their next outage to clean their other reservoir.
Until then…the customer is still using the rental dehydrator as a precaution against further water ingression issues and to help control particle counts.
Give us a call to discuss any problems you may be experiencing with you lube oil systems. From particulate to water ingression, we have the solutions!!
