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"I think we can all agree that beer in its modern form is the pinnacle of human achievement." -Beer columnists Mark Tichenor and Bruce Lish Your Company Name Could Be Here!
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New This Month:
Articles:
Would You Like To Be A Pittsburgh Section Sponsor? If you sponsor ASME Pittsburgh, we will feature your company's products and services in our newsletter and capture the attention of 1500+ members to inform them of your company, or on this site and be on the WWW. For more information click here or contact anyone on the Executive Committee.
Reliant Cheswick Coal Plant Tour POSTPONED TO A FUTURE DATE DUE TO AN UNEXPECTED PLANT SHUTDOWN
Program Description: The Cheswick Power Station is located along the Allegheny River in Springdale, Pennsylvania, approximately 10 miles North-East of Pittsburgh. The station achieved commercial operation in 1970. The plant consists of one coal-fired 588 MW (net) steam unit and employs 85 full-time power station professionals. The boiler is a Combustion Engineering tangentially fired, split furnace, balanced draft, controlled circulation, drum-type unit delivering 4,000,000 Lbs/Hr of 1005° main steam at 2,620 Psi (SH outlet) and reheating 3,650,000 Lbs/Hr of reheat steam to 1005°, at 550 Psi. Forced/assisted circulation is provided by four, 700 HP, boiler circulating water pumps. The boiler firing system has a total of 40 burners at 5 elevations supplied by five, bowl-type coal pulverizer mills. Natural gas is used as startup fuel and flame stabilization during upsets. Two Lungstrom 30.5' diameter, vertical-shaft airheaters preheat the combustion air delivered by two 2,250 HP Forced Draft fans and two 1,250 HP Primary Air fans. A B&W Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) system removes 90% of the NOx emissions. Cold side, 24-section, Hamon Research Cottrell electro-static precipitators remove 99.8% of the fly ash from the flue gas, prior to the two 7,500 HP, 1,200,000 CFM Induced Draft fans which discharge into a single, 755' tall concrete shell, steel lined stack. The steam performs its work in a 20 stage General Electric tandem compound steam turbine generator of the "G2" series. A combined HP/IP dense pack turbine and two, double flow LP turbines directly drive the two-pole generator at 3,600 Rpm. The HP turbine consists of 8 stages and is straight full-arc admission using four control valves. The IP turbine has 5 stages and the two double-flow LP turbines each consist of 7 double flow stages with 30" last-stage blades. LP turbine exhaust steam is condensed in a single pass, two-zone 210,000 Ft^2 surface condenser, supplied with once-through river water from three circulating water pumps, each rated 1,000 HP and 82,000 GPM. Seven stages of extraction steam are taken off at various points on the HP, IP and LP turbines for feedwater heating and to drive the two 50% steam turbine-driven boiler feedwater pumps. The hydrogen cooled generator has a nameplate capacity of 700 MVA at 23,000 Volts and is connected via a dedicated iso-phase bus duct to two 350 MVA step-up transformers which raise the voltage to 138,000 Volts for connection to the Pittsburgh control area grid. Station service power is provided by five, 4,160-Volt station service busses fed from three 25 MVA, 138 kV to 4,160 V station service transformers. A fuel-oil-fired auxiliary boiler provides building heat and critical system protection during extended outages. The condensate system consists of two 50%, 350 HP, 4,040 GPM, 120 Psi, vertical-type hotwell pumps, discharging in to the air-ejector condensers, steam packing exhausters and finally through the three-vessel condensate polisher. Two 1,250 HP, 4,900 GPM condensate booster pumps take suction from the polishers and raise the condensate pressure to 550 Psi and discharge to the LP heater train. The last LP heater is an open, tray-type deaerating heater of 55,000 gallons capacity located on the 10th floor of the plant to provide adequate suction head for the feed pumps. Two 50% steam turbine driven feed pumps each rated 10,000 HP, 5,000 GPM, 3,500 Psi take suction from the dearator and discharge feedwater to the two vertical high-pressure feedwater heaters and then to the finned tube economizer in the boiler backpass which completes the feedwater heating, delivering 4,000,000 Lbs/hr of 585°F feedwater to the boiler drum. The steam turbines driving the boiler feed pumps exhaust their steam directly to the main unit condenser. Complete automatic plant control is provided by a Westinghouse WDPF DCS system. 15 separate, dual-controller DCS drops, each fed by two redundant UPS power supplies provide complete coordination and control of the main plant systems. A Westinghouse Ovation DCS system provides control of the SCR NOx removal system. Nearly all plant functions other than bus switching and large motor starting are performed on the various DCS computer workstation screens. A fully implemented OSI-PI data historian and trending package complement the Westinghouse DCS historian, providing thorough and complete data trending, history and sequence of events information seamlessly. Coal is delivered via barge with truck delivery available for frozen river conditions. The plant maintains two active sections of the coal storage pile for both high and low sulfur coal. The two coals are then blended to meet an SO2 emission limit of 2.8#/Mmbtu and the as-fired blend typically has a heating value of 11,800 BTUs/Lb and an ash content of ~ 8%. The plant consumes roughly 5,500 tons of coal per day at full load. Ammonia for the SCR system is delivered via rail car and stored in four 60,000-gallon storage tanks. Bottom ash is sluiced from the dry-bottom boiler, submerged ash hoppers to the nearby hydrobins where it is dewatered and hauled by truck to the plant owned landfill or sold for beneficial use. Fly ash is pulled from the precipitator hoppers with a dry vacuum system, stored in the onsite ash silo and also hauled via truck to the same landfill or beneficial use site. The plant can operate in load-following automatic control from full rated 590 MW down to 145 MW without firing supplemental fuel, and at typical controlled ramp rates of 7 MW's per minute. At full load the demonstrated net station heat rate is 9,750 BTU/kWH. *Cancellation within 24 hours of event will require event payment unless a replacement can be found to attend. *
November Newsletter Read the latest ASME Pittsburgh Newsletter here (in .pdf - may take a moment to load - please be patient) Featured articles include:
Download Adobe's free Acrobat Reader to view PDF files.
The newsletter is currently published well ahead of the e-mail notice here on this website. All you have to do is browse our website at your convenience and you can find it here anytime. Previous newsletters will still be available via the Archives page. **If you would like to have the newsletter in printed form, you can simply open the above link and use the print option on your browser. ** In addition to the newsletter, this website will continue to have the latest information on monthly events, tours, news, contact information, job postings, resources, archives, and a host of other information to keep you informed.
Message from the Chair Dear Members, Happy Thanksgiving! This coming month, we have two programs taking place. The first is a Joint Student Program with area universities and the topic will be Generation Gaps. This will be a fun and educational evening to network with other professionals! Hope to see you on November 7th at Carnegie Mellon University for this mixer! Contact Marilyn Reeder or myself to sign up for this program. In September we were scheduled to have our first tour at the Reliant Energy Power Plant in Cheswick, but due to unforeseeable circumstances at the plant, the tour had to be canceled at the last minute. We have rescheduled with Reliant and this tour is our second program in November and is scheduled for November 14th. Please sign up with Lori Rankin by November 12th to attend! I hope that you will be able to attend our November programs. They will definitely be fun and interesting. Looking ahead to December, the Chain Reaction Contraption (Formerly Rube Goldberg Machine) Contest will be taking place at the Carnegie Science Center on December 7th. This year’s task is to draw and erase an ‘X’ in twenty steps or more. I hope you can attend and support the creative efforts of these student teams! If you are interested in becoming more involved with the ASME Pittsburgh Section, please contact myself or any Executive Committee Member. Our next Executive Committee Meeting will be held on Friday, November 16th, at the Panera Bread on the Boulevard of the Allies in Oakland at 6 p.m. Again, we at ASME Pittsburgh hope you have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving! Sincerely,
Your E-Mail Address - The Key to ASME International Did you know that your e-mail address is the key to what's happening at ASME? By providing us with your current e-mail address, you can learn about events taking place in your local section, such as professional development courses, industry tours, section meetings, lectures, networking opportunities, and technical conferences. Updating your e-mail address online only takes a few minutes. To access your membership information, go to www.asme.org. Click on the "Members Only" tab to log onto this site. Be sure to have your member number on hand. After logging on to Members Only, select the "Change of Address and Information" link, located on the upper right-hand side of your screen. From this screen, you will be able to update your primary contact information. So don't miss out on all that ASME has to offer! If you have any questions about your membership information, contact InfoCentral at infocentral@asme.org.
The 2007-2008 Chain Reaction Contraption Contest (formerly Rube Goldberg Machine Contest) will be held on Friday, December 7, 2007 at the Carnegie Science Center (not at UPMC SportsWorks this year). Once again, this contest is made possible by volunteer efforts of the engineering and science community in Pittsburgh. The Chain Reaction Contraption Contest gives local high school students the chance to build, engineer and operate a wacky machine that will perform an everyday task. This year's challenge is to draw and erase an 'X' in 20 steps or more. We need volunteers to judge and to help out on contest day. We are interested in getting both half-day volunteers (7AM until noon) and full-day volunteers (7AM-4PM). Breakfast and lunch will be provided to volunteers. Also, you will have free admission to the Carnegie Science Center on December 7, and parking will be free if you register with me in advance. If you want more information on the contest, please visit www.chainreactioncontest.org, contact me (412-374-2785 or savindc@westinghouse.com), or see this flyer. If you are interested in volunteering, please let me know by November 30 and tell me if you will be around for a half day or a full day. The earlier you can tell me the better. Also, feel free to pass this along to anyone else who might be interested. Thanks! Christopher M. Savinda, CRCC Judging Coordinator
Notices
Upcoming Meetings The next Executive Committee meeting will be Friday , November 16, 2007 at 6:00 PM at Panera Bread, 3401 Blvd of the Allies, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 If you wish to attend, please contact Heather DeBiase at (412) 374-3975 or any member of the Executive Committee. (Meet some of the gang!) See the Calendar page for the year's upcoming programs.
Business Calendar The Pittsburgh Business Calendar publishes a calendar of events for the Pittsburgh business community. Click on the link for the full calendar of events. (http://www.businesscalendar.org/) You can also check out the ESWP techniCALENDAR for upcoming events at: http://www.eswp.com/techniCALENDAR/the_calendar.htm
The Value of Your Membership Just Increased!! Take advantage of the New Discounted Dues Structure. If you have earned a baccalaureate degree or an advanced degree and have been out of school 4 years or less you can can save up to 60% on Member Dues. Check out the current member dues rates available at http://www.asme.org/member/info.html.
ASME International News and Periodicals ME Magazine: http://www.memagazine.org/ ASME News: http://www.asmenews.org/
ASME Connections: http://www.asme.org/About/Connections/ ASME Press Releases: http://www.asme.org/NewsPublicPolicy/PressReleases/
Some Technology Humor (true story): A former Canadian defense minister says the answer to concerns about climate change is technology from UFOs. He's demanding that governments worldwide use secret alien technology to replace fossil fuels and save the planet from global warming. Paul Hellyer served in the Canadian cabinet in the sixties. He tells the Ottawa Citizen that governments have alien technology they obtained from the crashes of UFOs. He says those spacecrafts were equipped with advanced fuel sources and propulsion systems that could eliminate the burning of fossil fuel within a generation. **ASME's Mechanical Engineering Magazine periodically contains the new supplement Engineering Management. Current and would-be managers can turn to this supplement to pick up some of those skills needed in today's work environment. Go to the links below: July '04: http://www.memagazine.org/emjuly04/index.html November '04: http://www.memagazine.org/emnov04/index.html March '05: http://www.memagazine.org/emmar05/index.html July '05 http://www.memagazine.org/emjuly05/index.html Rand Corporation said that your home computer would look like this in 2004. Take a look here to see if your computer really looks like their prediction. If you missed our April 2004 tour of the Seward Power Plant, you missed a remarkable event. But you can still take the virtual tour here!! www.reliant.com/files/450457_Seward_Tour_and_Dedication.pps Learn to make really cool paper airplanes!! Visit ASME's Airplane Archive at: http://www.asme.org/events/flight/paperarchive.shtml?URL=www.asme.org "Man must rise above the Earth - to the top of the atmosphere and beyond - for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives." - Socrates
Recognizing our Fellow Members The Fellow Grade is the highest elected grade of membership within ASME, the attainment of which recognizes exceptional engineering achievements and contributions to the engineering profession. Did you know there are 53 members in our Section who are Fellows? If you know any of them, please congratulate them on their achievement! Adnan Akay, Harvey Allen, Cristina Amon,
Edmund Appleby, John Barsom, Donald Burnham, Jonathan Cagan, Norman Chigier,
Minking Chyu, Ronald Coffield, Maria Comninou, Arthur Croll, Ellison Davison,
James Di Perna, David Dietrich, W. Doty, L. Ike Ezekoye, Martin Falk,
Jerry Griffin, Donald Griffin, Gus Holabeck, Charles Jones, Wilbur Kennicott,
William Lankford, Jack Maurer, Bertram Milleville, Jack Moore, William
O’Donnell, Leighton Orr, Fletcher Osterle, Sam Palusamy, William Purcell,
David Purdy, Arthur Rathbun, Stephen Roth, Wilfred Rouleau, Sunil Saigal,
George Saxon Sr.,Stanley Schaffer, Allen Selz, Patrick Smolinski, Alfred
Snow, Paul Steif, Theodore Stern, Remco Waszink, John Wesner, Jonathan
Wickert, Donald Wiebe, Bernard Winer, Savio Woo, Tse Chien Woo, Shi-Chune
Yao, Campbell Yates.
Voices of Innovation A new daily public radio program, "Voices of Innovation," launched by the American Association of Engineering Societies with generous support from ASME, features some 200 engineers in 2-minute programs that explore and celebrate the world of engineering. The program began airing in April 2002. To be considered for one of the programs, engineers need to submit a story idea form, which is available at www.voicesofinnovation.org.
E-Mentoring Program to Expand to Young Engineers The success of last year's program and the enthusiastic response of members wanting to become mentors has fueled the expansion of the e-Mentoring program. This program for student members is expanding to include mentoring services for engineers who have recently (5 years or less) graduated from engineering school. Young engineers can now benefit from the career advice of more seasoned engineers in their particular field of interest. Recent graduates may get even more benefit from a mentoring relationship, since they have some experience and may have more specific career questions. How does the program work? Students and young engineers (mentees) seeking a mentor choose from a database of names, which gives information about the mentor's background, experience and engineering specialty. Mentees are then asked to fill out an online application indicating their top three choices for mentors. The mentor requests are evaluated by ASME and matched on a first come, first served basis. Only members are eligible to participate in this program as a mentor or mentee. Anyone wishing to find a mentor or to volunteer to become a mentor for a student or young engineer member should visit the website at www.asme.org/ementoring. Volunteers can choose to mentor a student, a young engineer or both. Questions about the program should be addressed to Deidra Hackley, at hackleyd@asme.org.
Nominations Needed for Young Engineers Award ASME International wants to give $5,000 plus a prepaid life membership to a young ASME member that has done an outstanding job in their profession, community, and the work of ASME. If you know someone who deserves to win this award, please nominate a young engineer for the Old Guard Young Engineers Award today! For more information, visit http://www.asme.org/cma/og/youngengineer.html .
Professional Development Professional Education Courses: Two new products are at the ASME PE and FE Exam Review
Center. New FE Workbook and CD-Rom and the PE Exam Review on DVD ASME Online Short Courses: New titles include Project Management and Advanced GD&T. Prefer training on CD-Rom? Go to http://www.asme.org/education/disted/computer.htm. New ASME Corporate Online Training Library: Meet all your mechanical engineering training needs in one economical package tailored to your company. Go to http://www.asme.org/education/disted/library.htm. Please continue responding to the online survey at http://www.asme.org/sections/pgh/pdsurvey.html. Future topics will be selected based on member input.
Public Affairs What's going on in Washington D.C.? Visit Government Relations , a weekly review of the latest legislative,regulatory, pollicies, and issues from Washington.
Updates
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* SECTION * November 14, 2007: November 16, 2007: December 7, 2007: December, 2007: January 19, 2008: January 30, 2008:
**For more details on these and additional
upcoming events, visit the Upcoming
Events page** Renew your membership? Add your program ideas for next year? Send them to Heather DeBiase . Consider getting involved with any of our activities? There are many ways, such as Industry Relations, Engineer's Week, Science Fair, Awards Banquet, web site, discussion list. Contact Heather DeBiase . Consider signing up to be an e-Mentor? Make sure that your contact information is up to date? We will increasingly use electronic means to contact our members so please be sure your e-mail and fax numbers are accurate. Set up your e-mail alias? You can have a yourname@asme.org address that you can conveniently manage yourself. People will always be able to locate you, regardless of your work situation. Download
your ASME screensaver?
Show your interest in a Professional Development course by taking the survey? Think about articles, tips, brain teasers, news, how-to's, etc. you can contribute to our newsletter? Consider joining the Section e-mail list? Consider getting involved with the Executive Committee? You can get involved in any capacity. If you can contribute only one hour a week, we would be grateful for your time. Contact anyone in the committee.
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