Machinery Safety??

[sameenkhan]

Hi Guys,

I have been working in machinery control & safety for quite some years... I would really appreciate your input on following questions??

What mechanical measures are used to protect high speed machinery (e.g. turbines, compressors & pumps)??
How to establish that mechanical measures are in place and is protecting the machine, during normal machine operation??


Regards,
Sameen

[fraz]

What I can infer from your post is that you are talking about machinery protection against overspeed and vibrations.
Vibration securities in amchine are always electronic securities, while in older machines there is a mechanical OST system. The health of which can be analyzed with machine tripping during OST checking which are normally done once a year.
In new machines electronic OST has replaced the mechanical OST. So in new machines there is no mechanical protections against OST. According to API 616 for Gas Turbines an overspeed trip protection shall operate at 105 percent of maximum continuous speed.

[sameenkhan]

Hi,

I agree with mechanical OST.. and it is still & was being used in most of the sites...
Object of my question was to understand what type of mechanical measures are there inside the machine which can protect machine from OST, High Vibration & Thrust etc.

When it comes to machine safety... Do we totally rely on electronic protection systems??... if yes.. considering that electronic protection system don't react to such problem within proper time (it is game of msec)... then what other mechanical measures are there as per LOPA??

Regards,
Sameen

[fraz]

Hi

We totallay rely on elctronic protection systems. But according to API 670 there should be a separate protction systems which does not take feedback from any other source

Regards,
Fraz Khan