Our work / Mechanical and controls
Cooling water skids for a natural gas power plant
Main and auxiliary closed-loop cooling skids for 2,000 kW Siemens natural gas generators. We did the calculations, the 3D design and the drawings, and the skids are running at the plant.
A natural gas power plant in California runs 2,000 kW Siemens generators. Each engine needed a main and an auxiliary closed-loop cooling water module. We designed them from scratch.
What we were responsible for
- Concept: the layout of both circuits and how the skid connects to the engine and the radiators.
- Calculations: heat flow, hydraulic, mechanical and controls, all worked from the Siemens submittals.
- 3D design and drawings: the frame, pumps, valves, tanks and every pipe spool.
- Bill of materials for every part on the skid.
- Build: the customer fabricated the skids to our drawings, and we oversaw the build.
- Commissioning and support for the life of the equipment.
How the skid works
The main circuit cools the engine jacket water. The auxiliary circuit cools the charge air. Each circuit has its own pump, valve, strainer, check valve and expansion tank.
Each pump runs on a VFD to hold the flow the engine maker requires. An electric three-way valve sends part of the water through the radiator and the rest back to the pump, which holds the engine inlet temperature.
We built a head loss model of both circuits to size the pipe, pumps and expansion tanks against the engine maker's pressure and flow limits before the design was released.
The skids are now in operation at the plant.
