Indian Point SD
Indian Point SD
(OP)
Anyone have more details on this one?
http ://www.nbc newyork.co m/news/loc al-beat/Tr ansformer- Explosion- Closes-Ind ian-Point- Nuclear-Pl an-1068777 83.html?dr
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RE: Indian Point SD
However, it seems a pretty straight forward non-nuclear transformer explosion. Unfortunately, those happen with some regularity at power stations (nuclear or non-nuclear) or substations. They're a pretty spectacular fire whether at a nuclear plant or at the substation in your neighborhood. But there is no link between them and the nuclear side of things.
Patricia Lougheed
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RE: Indian Point SD
Sounds to me like liquid filled. Wondering about protective relays involved, this type of failure should be rare with proper maintenence and protection.
RE: Indian Point SD
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(2B)+(2B)' ?
RE: Indian Point SD
All that size are oil-filled. Fans circulate air across the sets of coolers behind each transformer.
Used to use PCB's inside as coolant. Now oil.
RE: Indian Point SD
Since they're not a nuclear component, the level of maintenance is pretty much the same whether they're at a nuclear plant, a coal-fired plant, or a local sub-station. Unfortunately, with deregulation, the level of maintenance of infrastructure has decreased, because no one wants to pay for it.
Patricia Lougheed
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RE: Indian Point SD
RE: Indian Point SD
Kimberly-Clark in Loudon, Tn had such a failure (lightning) about 3 years ago. Burned for three days.
RE: Indian Point SD
I find no reason to assume that a nuke plant doesn't sample and trend DGA on their Generator Stepup Unit transformer. Quite the contrary, based on my firsthand experience I would think dga testing is done at least quarterly and trended. There are NEIL and ANI insurance requirements that drive this, among other things.
You imply that simple DGA testing would have prevented this event. In general, we have to consider:
1 - There are situations when a problem is detected but immediate action cannot be taken based on plant conditions.
2 - More importantly, not all failures stretch out over a time-frame that allows detection/action through dga. In addition to lightning mentioned above, there can be through-fault leading to mechanical-induced turn-to-turn fault which can escalate rapidly. There are other scenarios as well...
For this particular event, according to the link, the failure was initiated by a bushing. If the failure originates inside a bushing without heating the main-tank oil, it gives no dga evidence. (The bushing oil is separate from the main tank oil) If it is associated with externally visible connection of hv bushing, it might show on infrared (we don't know if that's the case). If it's associated with the bushing internal insulation degradation/contamination, then likely wouldn't show up on anything other than power factor testing of the bushings, but the time-frame for that testing is limited to outages.
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(2B)+(2B)' ?
RE: Indian Point SD
I fully agree. Question for you since you seem more familiar with nuc plants than myself. I know on a decent amount of civilian plants, on HV transformers, they have installed automated DGA units that sample periodically over a set period.
I'm curious to see when the last Doble test on the bushings (C1, C2 tests) were done.
RE: Indian Point SD