Thesis
EXAMINING THE PROSPECT OF TRANSITIONING FROM A CONVETIONAL GREASE TO AN ENVIRONMENTALLY ACCEPTABLE GREASE
Washington State University
Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
01/2021
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000001870
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/125026
Abstract
Grant County PUD (Public Utility District) was required by a lawsuit to investigate the potential of transitioning from a traditional grease to an environmentally acceptable grease. While transitioning to EAL, environmentally acceptable lubricants, had been on Grant County PUD radar, and the transition had started on components directly impacting the fish of the Columbia River, the lawsuit wanted all components that could potentially impact the Columbia River to be looked at. Although environmentally acceptable lubricants have been around for many years in the shipping industry, use of them in the hydro industry is relatively new and presents its own unique challenges.This study was to find which lubricants could be changed, based on technical feasibility and compatibility between the traditional non-EALs and the newly developed EALs, as well as test the selected EALs. Specifically, the investigation looks into if the selected EALs would work in a real-world situation, and investigate any potential unforeseen problems, that could potentially impact scaling the changeover to larger applications. It was decided, after much consideration and consultations with other hydro utilities, that a change-over of the 76 EP-1 Multiplex Red grease was the most feasible and would have the largest impact, as it is the most used grease at Grant County PUD in the hydro division.
Once a non-EAL grease had been chosen, research went into finding compatible EAL greases that could be used as replacements. Once testing had been completed to find the two most compatible EAL greases, next was replacing the non-EAL grease in the Wanapum Dam fish pump Farval systems, each for a year, and evaluating the results of the year investigation, based on the work orders created that required mechanical, operator, or engineering intervention.
The results of the two-year long investigation showed that the EAL grease, Panolin Biogrease EP2, was the best option for further study and for scaling. The next steps in this research is implementing the EAL grease into the Priest Rapids Dam old turbine Farval systems, monitor the work orders and after a year, if scaling is successful, implement the EAL grease into the new turbine Farval systems.
Metrics
17 File views/ downloads
37 Record Views
Details
- Title
- EXAMINING THE PROSPECT OF TRANSITIONING FROM A CONVETIONAL GREASE TO AN ENVIRONMENTALLY ACCEPTABLE GREASE
- Creators
- Jennifer C Bell
- Contributors
- Joseph Iannelli (Advisor)Changki Mo (Advisor)Messiha Saad (Committee Member)Yuxin Zhang (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Engineering and Applied Sciences (TRIC), School of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 52
- Identifiers
- 99900606554801842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis