Machinery Lubrication July August 2008

CASE STUDY
Storage and Dispensing
Systems Complement Lube
Room Procedure
BY LARRY KING, THE IFH GROUP, INC.
Beaver Valley Power Station (BVPS) is a nuclear power
plant near Shippingport, Pa., 34 miles from Pittsburgh.
The plant has two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors
capable of producing 970 and 920 megawatts of power,
respectively. It is owned by First Energy Nuclear Operating
Corporation. Unit 1 has been in commercial operation since
1976, and Unit 2 commenced commercial operation in
August 1987.
Figure 1. A 24-container System
The plant’s location on the Ohio River has the historic
significance of being on the site of the United States’ first
nuclear power plant, which went into service on December 2,
1957. It generated 60 megawatts of electricity at full power,
according to Tyrone Turner, supervisor of the tool room and
metrology lab at BVPS.
In a modern, large-scale facility such as BVPS, there is large
amount of machinery (such as turbines, diesel generators
and a vast array of pumps), all of which require lubrication.
“Every pump and gear case in the plant requires its own
lubricant,” said tool room attendant Ted Kubera.
Now in his 30th year with BVPS, Kubera is in charge of the
daily operation of the oil room, located within the tool room
area at the plant. Because security is a priority, access to this
secure room is restricted.
“The tool room is always locked when unoccupied,”
Kubera said. And because the oil room is located within the
heated tool room, the oil is not only secure, but is also warm
and ready to use.
Making sure that every piece of machinery in the plant
receives the right lubricant is critical, and it’s important that
the oil is fresh, clean and free of contaminants. A variety of
premium-performance circulating lubricant oils of different
grades and weights are stored in a custom-designed fluid
storage and dispensing system manufactured by The IFH
Group, Inc. of Rock Falls, Ill. The system was sold to BVPS by
M.W. Byers Company in Carnegie, Pa., which helped BVPS
custom design the system and install it in 2001.
Before
The lubricants are delivered in 55-gallon drums wheeled
into the oil room. Before installation of the IFH system, the
lubricants had been dispensed from 55-gallon drums with
spouts mounted on racks. The drums had to be laboriously
hauled up onto the racks and dispensed from the drums and,
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