Hydrosele success at Italian pumped storage plant
A
James Walker and Co product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Oct 3, 2008
James Walker's Hydrosele has proved its sealing efficiency by running maintenance free for over two years at ENEL's Entracque pumped-storage hydroelectric scheme in Italy.
The Hydrosele cartridge unit replaced a mechanical seal that had to be changed frequently, on the plant's Unit 9 turbine, a costly exercise that created an unacceptable loss of generating capacity.
The pumped storage scheme has a working water head of 600m from the Rovina dam, high in the Maritime Alps, and nine vertical multi-stage reversible Francis turbines.
The Unit 9 turbine supplied by Ansaldo has a 680mm diameter shaft running at 600rpm to produce 130MW.
The unit was originally fitted with a spring-energised conical wedge mechanical seal that leaked up to 300 litre/min, causing plant flooding.
To work with the 600m head of water, the system was designed with a relief line that reduced the pressure at the seal interface to 10bar, making it suitable for Hydrosele operation.
The cartridge unit and adapter plate from James Walker were installed by ENEL maintenance staff in spring 2006.
Since then, the Hydrosele has operated adjustment-free, with a carefully controlled leakage rate of only 15 litre/min.
This is about one-twentieth of the water leakage from the mechanical seal it replaced.
Hydrosele's sealing elements operate within the fully-split cartridge.
Two elements work back-to-back with filtered flush water introduced between them.
In operation, the elements are pressure balanced and run on a hydrodynamic fluid film that provides high speed capability with a low level of controlled leakage.
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