Dany Lessard has been involved with balancing more than 130 hydrogenerator units. His experience and expertise on that field help him to deal with more complicated cases, which occur from time to time.
“It is not necessary to have a Masters’ degree in Mechanical Engineering on vibrations to perform the balancing of a hydrogenerator, but it certainly does not hurt to have one”.
We can help with that, no matter where you are located. We use many different techniques for alignment and we can supervise the alignment or give you technical support as needed. We can prepare a procedure well suited for your project.
The proper alignment of a unit is an expertise developed with time and experience. The principles of the alignment are fairly simple, but in practice, strong experience and use of proper methods is a big advantage for the client, since it can eliminate unnecessary steps and put the emphasis on critical items.
We have acquired many years of experience on index tests for relative efficiency calculation. We regularly perform this test during or after commissioning.
It is often a good idea to perform an index test on older units to ensure that the units are operated at their optimal efficiency conditions. This can lead to tremendous economical savings.
In many occasions, the laser tracker measurements can reduce the time for critical measurements during the alignment. View different techniques to use the FARO Laser Tracker in the erection of Hydro Generators:Laser Tracker Paper final Rev.1
We have been involved in a lot of commissioning over the years, including rotor balancing, overspeed tests, load rejections, heat runs and index tests.
(News)
Hydro Expertise and Canadian Instrumentation Services Group work together to offer a complete range of commissioning and acceptance tests (see announcement).
Canadian Instrumentation Services Group (CISG) has a lot of experience with generator testing and is carrying a complete calibration service for instrumentation, with traceability to National Standards. CISG’s quality system is in compliance with the ISO 2000:9001 Quality Standard.
From our experience the best timing for a short training session is a few weeks before the start of a major overhaul. It helps everybody to understand the reason behind all the readings being taken during the outage.
Learn how to make calculate the alignment and component characteristics like the best center, the circularity, concentricity etc. Learn how to use the CEA Guide on assembly tolerances. And learn what is important to know about a complete unit alignment.
Learn how to close your wicket gates circle, without unnecessary headaches. We can also teach you our balancing technique, preferably at the same time as we execute it on some of your units.
We perform diagnostic tests, such as vibration analysis, rotor rim displacement verification, airgap measurements and analysis. We can also verify the unit alignment and perform rotor and stator sweeps to acquire a complete image of the unit.
Hydro Expertise has some very valuable experience in troubleshooting and finding solutions for bearing failures.
We offer field technical support and we can continue to offer technical support when we are away from site. Our experience on the field and experience in supporting field personnel is one of our strengths. We work outside of regular hours and remain reachable at all time so that the field personnel are well supported.
By the way, we have a lot of experience on performing rotor heat shrinks, rounding and centering the rotor at the same time.
We have many years of experience on the field, to supervise major overhauls or the installation of new units.
We can also work in French and Spanish.
Book early so that you can reserve the personnel for your project. There are people available for installation supervision, welding supervision and winding jobs.
The proper alignment of a unit is an expertise developed with time and experience. The principles of the alignment are fairly simple, but in practice, strong experience and use of proper methods is a big advantage for the client, since it can eliminate unnecessary steps and put the emphasis on critical items.
A visual inspection of all the components is normally done and documented during major overhauls.
Hydro Expertise can also do specific inspection on shaft journals, bearings, rotor and stator.
For specific components of old hydrogenerators, Hydro Expertise will recommend that NDT testing be done by a specialised firm to ensure that there are no cracks in the material