ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the fundamentals of centrifugal pumps, addressing the range of pump operating problems encountered in both fossil and nuclear power plants. The condensate booster pump (CBP) is one of two 50" CBPs on a 600 MW unit. A vibration specialist from the CBP's original equipment manufacturers (OEM) took vibration measurements on both CBPs. Those measurements and corresponding analyses eliminated both base-motion characteristics as well as the pump internals as potential sources of the CBP's excessive motor vibration problem. OEM's vibration specialist recommended that measurement of the motor's shaft orbital displacement vibration during the thermal transient from a cold start to steady operating temperatures could clearly establish if the bowed-rotor diagnosis is correct. The vibration signals were recorded simultaneously in 10-second snippets taken at 10-minute intervals over the full-load 2-hour motor warm-up. A dial indicator was therefore subsequently set up to obtain cold shaft mechanical runout where the proximity probes had been located.
