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HydroVantage provides rational basis for preventative maintenance strategy at 90-year old power plantOntario Power Generation (OPG) owns a hydro facility located at the base of Niagara Falls. Its flow conveyance system consists of headworks, concrete and steel conduits, unit penstocks, rock cliff and generating equipment, plus a number of subcomponents. Because of its location, and the serious consequences to personnel and to the public of failure within the conveyance system, OPG asked Hatch Energy to carry out a comprehensive assessment in order to establish the real risk of failure within the system, including the face of the Niagara Gorge, and to determine whether preventative maintenance could reduce those risks. Analysis of critical equipment and uncertainties associated with applied loads lead to one specific component, an 18-foot diameter riveted steel conduit, installed early in the 20th century. A section of the conduit had buckled during installation, and over the years 75 per cent of the metal at the buckled area had been lost to internal erosion. The investigation focused on the probability of rupture of this area during normal operation. |
Hatch Energy used HydroVantage to evaluate the consequential costs of failure from old-age and wear-out conditions, and to examine the most significant risks. It was determined that refurbishment of head gates and conduits and installation of monitoring systems to warn of high risk conditions would reduce risk exposure by about $850,000, and that repair to the buckled section of the conduit would avoid a further $300,000 of risk. Benefits of the study included net savings of over $1.2 million, and the establishment of a rational, objective, technique for setting future maintenance strategies. |
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