Electrical West Volume 40 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1918 Excerpt: ...and, as previously noted, to keep the condenser tight. If an accumulation of scale or dried mud is found upon the steam screen near the throttle, no time should be lost in checking the trouble, or blading will be eroded, and it is extremely uncertain these days as to when new blades will be obtained. The greater part of the energy of our fuel oil is thrown away into the condensing water; roughly, about 60 per cent is thus wasted. The only help is to be found in cold circulating water and plenty of it; an apparent paradox where the colder the water and the more there is of it applied, the less heat it absorbs. That vacuum is the source of economy should be drilled into every engineer. Assuming no actual damage occurs to a turbine, about all the engineer can do to enhance its economy is to keep the condenser tight and clean on the water side, and to go after every possible leak on the steam side and to keep the vacuum and circulating pumps in first-class condition. In some tests made on a 20,000 kw. turbine carrying 17,300 kw., a leak one-twentieth of a square inch in area reduced the vacuum 0.2 inch. The various auxiliaries in a plant may be either steam or electric driven, or both. In the latter case the greater plant economy will result from running sufficient steam auxiliaries up to the capacity of the feed water to absorb the waste steam, hot feed having the advantage over cold in not checking the boiler evaporation so greatly when emergency calls are made. Generator losses are fixed by design except that when operating two or more machines in parallel, fields should be adjusted to give the same power factor to each, thus eliminating cross currents. Lights and the operation of various pumps for circulating transformer oil and water, drainage, fuel oil, a...