Archives for 2018

Update:  Serena Black wins the Claud Thompson Decatur Industrial Electric Scholarship for second year in a row! Serena is currently working part-time at JL Hubbard Insurance & Bonds as a Customer Service Representative while she attends University. Her goal is to be a business-related professor. She is studying accounting. 

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Serena Black, a graduate of Warrensburg-Latham high-school and Richland Community College, and currently a student at Millikin University, has received a $1,000 scholarship to help cover education related expenses for the 2018/19 school year.  She will major in Accounting and minor in Finance. Long term, she hopes to obtain her M.B.A. 

“Receiving scholarships is important to me for many reasons. I am the first in my family, both immediate and extended, to pursue a college education. I am self-supported when it comes to financing my education, so I work part-time at J. L. Hubbard Insurance and Bonds while going to school to offset out-of-pocket costs. Receiving the Claud Thompson Industrial Electric Scholarship has helped to ease financial stress and encourage me to excel as a student. I thank the donors of this scholarship for allowing me the opportunity to continue my education at such a prestigious institution. ”

In her spare time, Serena competes in high-level billiard tournaments. During her time as a junior player, she was given the opportunity to represent the United States in multiple international settings. She has traveled as far as Shanghai, China, Las Vegas, NV, Tampa, FL, and all over the Midwest to compete for different sanctions. She has a couple of national titles and, more importantly, an undying love for the game of pool! Her athletic career comes second to her education so she doesn’t compete as often as she used to. 

The Claud Thompson Decatur Industrial Electric Scholarship
This scholarship assists students seeking a career in business through the Tabor School of Business (PACE included) at Millikin University or students pursuing engineering technology degrees at Richland Community College. Additional criteria online includes financial need and students who are self-driven and leadership-oriented with a record of community service. High school seniors and college students may apply for the scholarship on the Community Foundation of Macon County website at www.endowdecatur.org. 

To find out more about our founder, click here. 

Power Quality = Voltage Quality

The power circuit provides the avenue or path that allows your supply voltage to reach the motor. The power circuit is comprised of all the cabling, connectors, switches, contacts, and terminal blocks from the transformer power supply to the motor leads. These connections are under constant mechanical, thermal, electrical, and environmental stresses, presenting plenty of opportunity for a compromised power circuit. And a compromised power circuit will result in an inefficient and unreliable motor as a result of voltage and current imbalance, localized heating of a bad connection, and excessive internal heating of your electric motor and insulation systems.

Power circuit testing with the motor de-energized can be performed with the MCE^® phase-to-phase resistance measurement and trended with a resistive imbalance calculation. Remember to include as much of the power circuit as safely possible. If the motor is energized the EMAX Power test provides voltage and current measurements and imbalance calculations to identify any power circuit anomalies. Remember voltage imbalance is only seen if your voltage leads are downstream of the fault.

To see the MCEMAX^® used to identify a power circuit anomaly watch this video brought to you by our friends at PdMA.

Learn warning signs of needed repairs and avoid common mistakes.

Vertical turbine pumps (VTPs) are workhorses in the petrochemical, power generation and manufacturing industries, and prolific in municipal water applications that handle the primary intake load. The ability to develop high head with multiple impeller bowls—coupled with the ubiquity of standard vertical motors that can support heavy pump shaft loads—makes VTPs a good choice. Although these machines are ruggedly built, abrasive sediments in the pumpage take a toll, particularly on line shaft and pump bowl bearings, so periodic overhauls are often necessary. Rather than simply replacing the bearings, however, it is important that repairs address all of the issues needed to restore maximum operating life.

Common Repairs

Common VTP repairs include replacing line shaft and pump bowl bearings, replacing worn shafting, removing corrosion from submerged components and applying corrosion-resistant coatings. Corroded or cavitation-damaged impellers may be repaired and coated or, if badly damaged, replaced.

Pump bowls, suction bells and discharge casings are typically heavy castings that can be reconditioned and fitted with replacement wear rings as necessary. Column sections are similarly reconditioned or replaced if severely corroded.

The discharge elbow that supports the pump (mounted below) and the motor (mounted above) may be less affected by corrosion than submerged components, but special attention is needed to identify and correct any distortion that may have resulted from the heavy stresses applied to this component.

Fit & Alignment

Since line shaft and pump bowl bearings are the most common wear parts for VTPs, repairs should address the fit and alignment of these components. If the discharge elbow and column sections have become distorted, simply replacing the worn bearings will not restore proper running clearances. In that case, the faces and rabbits of the mating components must also be remachined to restore dimensional integrity. Unless special manufacturing equipment is available, this challenging task requires a lathe or boring mill large enough to handle the bulky pump components, and possibly careful engineering to properly support them in the machine tool.

Finish the article online here: https://www.pumpsandsystems.com/best-practices-vertical-turbine-pump-repair