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OVERVIEW: Ask a plant maintenance professional in charge of maintaining the Thru Flow Traveling Water Screens what area is the most difficult to monitor wear and service? Most will say the foot shaft assembly! Why? Because it’s submerged and unless divers are called in or the well is drained it’s not readily accessible! Calling in a dive crew or draining the well is fine for a planned outage, when the unit can come off-line and the foot section can be reached.
But what about that unscheduled outage? What about that time when the screen locks up and the cause is not obvious when your standing on the operating floor. Worse still, what if it happens at peak generating time, or about 3:00 AM in the morning and during periods of heavy debris loading! Taking screens off line for emergency repairs can be extremely expensive, not to mention lost revenue if generating capacity is reduced!
Before going any further, let’s look at the components that make up a basic footshaft assembly.
- Footshaft, size varies depending on size of screen.
- Two foot sprockets...usually 48” PD
- Two sets of footshaft bearings, usually bronze or stoody type.
- Hardware for securing the assembly to the screen frame.
- Compression Couplings
Normal materials are usually carbon steel but can also be high grade stainless steel such as 316SS or Duplex Stainless Steel.
The environment that the assembly is submerged in can also vary from fresh water to ocean or brackish water. The water can also contain high concentrates of grit, sand or in the case of ocean water, sea shells. All of which can accelerate wear on the bearings and sprocket hubs.
Numerous plant personnel have asked Screening Systems International if we would look to see if there was any way to extend the required maintenance period of this assembly and minimize the possibility of an emergency breakdown.
SOLUTION: Our engineering department took up the challenge and after a period of time came up with a novel approach to the problem. Why not eliminate the footshaft assembly totally from that area, similar to what had been done to Dual Flow Water Screens many years before.
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Contact Information
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Address:
P.O. Box 760/215 Hwy. 19
Slaughter, LA 70777
Toll Free: 1.877.654.3900
Phone: 225.654.3900
Fax: 225.654.3966
Email: sales@screeningsystems.com |
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