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P&S Managing Editor Alex Ferretti and I had the pleasure of spending a day this week at the Geiger Smith-Koch Mid-Atlantic Pump & Process Equipment Symposium in Aston, PA. What an absolute BLAST!

Not only did we get to take apart and assemble a centrifugal pump, a magnetic drive pump, mechanical seals and a rotary gear pump, but we got to hang out with some of the coolest and most fascinating pump guys around.

Even though we had to endure a little Big Ten football conversation when I wanted to talk SEC, it was fantastic spending time with the guys who really make a difference in the pump plants. These are the people most of us never get to meet, but they are the heart and soul of our industry . . . the people who work tirelessly and expertly to repair your pumps when they are down. I was really impressed with their knowledge of the innerworkings of the equipment and their expertise in the details of their craft.

Thanks to Ernie, Dave, Steve, Carmen, Toby, John, Chris, Kelly, Brian and all the great folks involved with the symposium. And especially thanks to Leigh and Henry Peck for allowing us the opportunity to participate in such a fun and informative hands-on event. Thanks, too, to Mark, Xander, Blair, Matt and all the other guys on my assemble teams who patiently endured all my questions, guided me through the process, kept me from damaging the equipment (and myself) and let me use the hammer!

Hello, Pumps & Systems readers. My name is Mark Wolka and I am a Product Engineer with NSK Corporation. I work at the Americas’ Headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I will be training at our Fujisawa Technical Center (F-TEC) in Japan for the next 1 ½ years. The intention of this blog is to provide insight into bearings for pump and compressor applications from what I learn in my experience in Japan.  First, I would like give you further background on me.

NSK F-TEC is the primary location where research and development for numerous NSK technologies has taken place in our 90+ years of developing and manufacturing bearings. While at F-TEC, I will be learning advanced bearing design for pump and compressor rolling element bearings.  This encompasses tribology, material engineering, and analysis technology of these bearing products for pump and compressor applications. I will receive hands-on experience with bearing failure analysis, advanced manufacturing techniques, and application specific product testing. I will visit many NSK facilities in addition to plants and factories of other Japanese companies as part of my training.  During my time here, I will also have the opportunity to enjoy the local culture in Japan.

I would greatly appreciate any questions or feedback you may have, as well as suggestions for topics you would like to hear about in future communications.  Please email me at wolkam@nsk-corp.com. 

Feel free to visit our North American website for more company and technical information at www.us.nsk.com.

I am in Chicago attending one of the most credible and well-respected publishing conferences in the world. The Folio Show brings together the brightest and most successful leaders in the publishing industry for exclusive training and insight into the newest trends, revenue-generating ideas, management techniques, digital advancements and groundbreaking technology.

The buzzword of this year’s event?

TWITTER.

Even though I try to be hip, I must admit this is the first time I’ve ever even heard this word. Therefore, I do not pretend to know what it means. But I am a reporter, so I am asking questions. Seriously. I’m having intelligent, in-depth conversations with publishing executives about tweeting.

Apparently, those who tweet (yes, that’s the verb tense) send instant messages to a network of people who want to receive them. What do they want to know?  It’s simple—“What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less. According to Twitter.com, “whether you’re eating an apple or looking forward to the weekend or heading out of town, it’s twitter-worthy.”

The New York Times calls Twitter “one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet.” TIME Magazine says, “Twitter is on its way to becoming the next killer app,” and Newsweek noted that “Suddenly, it seems as though all the world’s a-twitter.”

Barack Obama tweets, but Sarah Palin trends (there is a difference, but I’ll have to get back to you on that one). So, I figure if it is good enough for them, I’ll give it a try. If you dare, click here to join my twitter universe.

I realize that anyone who isn’t related to me would have no interest whatsoever in my everyday activities, so I would never bore you with that. I promise I will only tweet about things relevant to the pump community (now, there’s a sentence I never thought I would write).

This is an experiment. I cannot guarantee it will have a long life. But no one will ever be able to tell me I’m not willing to tweet.

Since we travel to Chicago Oct. 19-22 to celebrate water at WEFTEC with about 16,000 of our closest friends from 60 countries, I decided to research a few water issues. My internet search engine found more than 1 billion entries. Who says water is not a hot topic?

According to the United Nations Development Program, more than 1 billion people—about one in six—have no access to clean and safe drinking water while more than 2 billion lack access to adequate sanitation.

A dripping faucet can waste 20 gallons of water a day and a leaking toilet can use 90,000 gallons of water in a month. A gallon of bottled water is more expensive than a gallon of gasoline.

Meanwhile, T. Boone Pickens thinks water is the new oil, according to a now-famous article in Business Week (June 12, 2008). Water—which many refer to as “blue gold”—may become one of the world’s most expensive commodities. Like many land owners around the globe, Pickens plans to sell the water that lies beneath the 68,000 acres of Texas land he owns.

If he pumps it all, Pickens could sell about $165 million worth of water to Dallas each year. Even though property owners in Texas, and elsewhere, can legally sell their water separately from the land above it, this issue begs the question: “Who owns the water?”

The BW article reported that since the early 1900s, groundwater use in Texas has been governed by the “rule of capture,” otherwise described as “the biggest pump wins.”  It allows landowners to pump as much water as they can, even if doing so drains neighboring properties. After more than a decade of debate,  legislature and one persistent Pickens, the groundwater conservation district of Roberts County passed the 50-50 rule: Anyone who receives a new permit to pump can draw down the aquifer by 50 percent over the next 50 years.

Let me know what you think of this issue and other water topics and visit us at Booth #26186 at WEFTEC.

As a native of Houston, Texas, I was closely watching how the city fared from Hurricane Ike. Overall, the damage has been unbelievable.

Overwhelmingly, pump stations in the area have not fared well. On Saturday, hours after landfall, a pump station in Houston failed, which meant that most of the city was without water. While the pump station seems to be up and running again, the water situation has not improved for all residents.

In Seabrook, Texas (about 35 miles southeast of Downtown Houston), the situation is even worse. Here’s the report from the website of KHOU TV, the CBS affiliate in Houston:

“City Manager Chuck Pinto said that not only is the city without electricity, but that its sewer system is in critical condition. He said the entire system failed and worries about the potential health hazard because floodwaters have deluged the sewer lines.

Pinto worries that the city may have to build a temporary sewer plant just to get the system up and running again.

For that reason, Pinto said they want residents who fled the city in advance of the storm to stay away until the city can get the sewer issue resolved.”

A temporary sewer plant is not a short-term project, so Seabrook is in dire straits.

I learned several new facts on wind energy this week from Kevin George, national account manager for wind energy at SKF USA LLC. First, I had no idea how large wind turbines actually are. The blades themselves are 40 to 80 meters in length (131 to 262 feet). The body that houses the drivetrain attached to the blades weighs 60 tons (the gearbox alone weighs 15 tons), and the tower is 100 meters (or 300 ft) high.

Ideally, each turbine has a life of 20 years, but they have not been around long enough to test that theory out. In fact, that theory is limited by the fact that gearboxes are failing every 5 years and generators inside the body are failing every 2 to 3 years.

Those failures are one of the biggest problems facing the wind industry right now. After all, while maintenance can be routine at plants, routine maintenance on a wind turbine is much more difficult (not the least of which is traveling up the tower to reach the body). Providing the right lubricant to the different parts in the turbine’s body is a highly involved process. The industry also faces extreme environmental challenges, as the turbines are located in remote areas with variable winds. If it rains, the turbines are not protected.

Since the turbines are still under OEM warranty, many in the industry are choosing to run to fail instead of setting up predictive maintenance practices. Running to fail has catastrophic results, as seen in this video of what happens when a wind turbine explodes:

Wind Turbine Explosion

Condition monitoring systems will need to play an important role in moving the industry forward, as they provide the kind of predictive maintenance the industry needs to avoid catastrophic failure. The industry also needs advanced bearings, seals and automatic lubrication systems to withstand the extreme conditions of the industry.

The possibilities for wind energy as an energy source are exciting, but the industry as a whole still has room to grow. Innovations in the field are badly needed and would have widespread impact.

We are all concerned about energy cost and for good reason however it is very difficult to justify a project based on energy savings alone.  There are industries that have little interest in energy cost, power industry and refineries for example.  Power generation is primarily interested in uptime, availability and reliability.  Yes, energy is important especially in a coal fired plant where they continue to add environmental equipment that draws additional auxiliary with no return on investment.  Refineries focus on reliability, they cannot afford to lose a critical piece of equipment during the refining process.

 So why would we discuss reliability and uptime in an energy blog?  Because people are becoming so focused on energy they are losing site of the “Big Picture”.   As I mentioned in an earlier blog, reliability and efficiency are complimentary. 

 Case in point, (6) 5,000hp boiler feed pumps, direct coupled, fixed speed, flow is controlled by the feed water control valve with a minimum flow by pass line sized for 30% of design flow.  The plant is combined cycle merchant that wings load daily, five primary load points, from hot stand-by to full duct fire.  If the plant fails to deliver load on demand the utility is charged a 10 million dollar penalty.  What do you suppose their number one concern is?  Certainly not energy, this project was justified on availability and reliability, energy savings was a side benefit that saved the plant $908,485.00 per year.  Now lets look at additional savings, feed water control valve repair $400K, pump repair $400K, penalty for power disruption $10M.

 There are very few projects that justify themselves on energy savings alone.  It is unfortunate that many viable projects are scrapped because the project was presented solely on energy.   This can be avoided by asking the right questions when targeting a potential project.  This requires the participation of all key players within the plant, maintenance, operations, purchasing, engineering, and production assurance.  If you understand everyone’s issues and concerns it becomes easier to identify and justify a project.

 Look beyond energy savings you might be surprised what you find.  It’s all about the bottom line.

Some good news from New Orleans–while pumps were at the center of numerous stories related to flooding from Hurricane Katrina, it looks like the pumps currently in place are keeping up with the water from Hurricane Gustav. Read the full story from Reuters here.