"Rich Hampel" wrote in message
...
Indian Point was an efficiency disaster from the start-up. Probably
due to the inability of the main turbine condensers from operating down
to 1" hg. absolute. No one ever found out why the plants thermo
cycle was so way 'out of whack'. Suggestions were posed but never
proved that the condensation on the condenser tubes was not film-wise
condensation but some sort of 'wierd' drop-wise or mixture condensation
.... and no one ever found out why.

Actually, what you suggest might be backwards. 'drop-wise' condensation is
a much better heat-transfer mechanism than film. The two major performance
issues on the steam side of condensers is the thickness of the film through
which heat must be transferred in order to get to the metal tube, and the
amount of non-condensibles that accumulate against the film surface (even
trace amounts develop a film through which the vapor must diffuse to reach
the film). I have a good book at work ("Heat-Transfer", can't recall the
author/publisher from here) that has a couple of good chapters on condensing
mechanisms. Although somewhat dated (circa ~1990), it discusses that the
'Holy Grail' of condenser performance is to develop surfaces for promoting
stable 'drop-wise' condensation. No film against tube surface means heat
transfer coefficients can be on the order of 3X to 8X better. The
non-condensables problem has been well managed for many years with 'dry
suction pipes' and other design features.

I know IP One has been shutdown for a long time, didn't know it had an
abysmal performance problem. Just pointed out that it had a unique
combination of nuc and fossil fuels. It might be interesting to pour over
the old operating logs/data and apply the modern tools of station thermo
performance to see where things were NQR (not quite right). Of course, some
engineer may have found the problem back then, but the cost of fixing it
after the plant was already built may have been prohibitive.

If the design had hoped to achieve drop-wise condensation in the condenser
(by using some special treatment on the tube surface) but was not able to,
that would have required reverting back to a larger, film-wise surface
condenser. The cost of putting in a larger condenser and ripping apart the
turbine deck and all to do so would probably be reason enough to lock the
door and walk away.

daestrom

"Rich Hampel" wrote in message
...
Indian Point was an efficiency disaster from the start-up. Probably
due to the inability of the main turbine condensers from operating down
to 1" hg. absolute. No one ever found out why the plants thermo
cycle was so way 'out of whack'. Suggestions were posed but never
proved that the condensation on the condenser tubes was not film-wise
condensation but some sort of 'wierd' drop-wise or mixture condensation
.... and no one ever found out why.

Actually, what you suggest might be backwards. 'drop-wise' condensation is
a much better heat-transfer mechanism than film. The two major performance
issues on the steam side of condensers is the thickness of the film through
which heat must be transferred in order to get to the metal tube, and the
amount of non-condensibles that accumulate against the film surface (even
trace amounts develop a film through which the vapor must diffuse to reach
the film). I have a good book at work ("Heat-Transfer", can't recall the
author/publisher from here) that has a couple of good chapters on condensing
mechanisms. Although somewhat dated (circa ~1990), it discusses that the
'Holy Grail' of condenser performance is to develop surfaces for promoting
stable 'drop-wise' condensation. No film against tube surface means heat
transfer coefficients can be on the order of 3X to 8X better. The
non-condensables problem has been well managed for many years with 'dry
suction pipes' and other design features.

I know IP One has been shutdown for a long time, didn't know it had an
abysmal performance problem. Just pointed out that it had a unique
combination of nuc and fossil fuels. It might be interesting to pour over
the old operating logs/data and apply the modern tools of station thermo
performance to see where things were NQR (not quite right). Of course, some
engineer may have found the problem back then, but the cost of fixing it
after the plant was already built may have been prohibitive.

If the design had hoped to achieve drop-wise condensation in the condenser
(by using some special treatment on the tube surface) but was not able to,
that would have required reverting back to a larger, film-wise surface
condenser. The cost of putting in a larger condenser and ripping apart the
turbine deck and all to do so would probably be reason enough to lock the
door and walk away.

daestrom