The Locomotive . 8o THE LOCOMOTIVE July, Broken Blade Wrecks Turbo-Generator SUDDEN breaking of blades, probably caused by a slug of watercoming through with the steam, led to the destruction of a 4,000kw. turbo-generator at the plant of Indianapolis Power and LightCompany at Indianapolis, Indiana, on April 28th of this year. Whenthe clear, ringing hum of the smooth-running turbine suddenly changedto an ominous rumbling, attendants attempted to avert an accident by. Figure i tripping the emergency mechanism and closing the throttle valve. Thebreak-up occurred about twenty seconds later. Fortun
The Locomotive . 8o THE LOCOMOTIVE July, Broken Blade Wrecks Turbo-Generator SUDDEN breaking of blades, probably caused by a slug of watercoming through with the steam, led to the destruction of a 4,000kw. turbo-generator at the plant of Indianapolis Power and LightCompany at Indianapolis, Indiana, on April 28th of this year. Whenthe clear, ringing hum of the smooth-running turbine suddenly changedto an ominous rumbling, attendants attempted to avert an accident by. Figure i tripping the emergency mechanism and closing the throttle valve. Thebreak-up occurred about twenty seconds later. Fortunately, no onewas hurt. What is thought to have happened is that the broken blades Ijecamejammed between the revolving rotor and the stator, thus bringing themachine to a stop so abruptly that the inertia of the heavy, revolvingparts broke the rotor in two by breaking off ten bolts in the couplingbetween the stub-shaft and the steam rotor, bent the stub shaft, andtwisted the field shaft into three pieces. The accompanying photographs were taken shortly after the i is a view of the steam end; Figure 2 shows how the heavy 1928. THK LOCOMOTIVE 81 field shaft was bent and twisted olT. At (j:50 on tlie iii^ht of the accident the switchboard operator hearda low. runihling noise which continued for about three minutes. Duringthat time the meters indicated tliat the load was about kw. Thistook a sudden drop of 800 kw. and shortly thereafter another
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Keywords: ., bookauthorhartfordsteamboilerin, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860
