The technical process of turbine oil production consists of derivation of a base component based on distillate fractions of different deposits of oil. Then there is a subsequent removal of asphalt resinous substances, solid paraffins, and sulphur compounds by purification with selective solvents.
At the final stage of production, special additives are added to the purified base components with a set viscosity and flash point to provide the necessary performance characteristics of commercial oils.
There are a wide range of requirements for turbine oils when operating in turbine equipment. In particular, they are put into operation only with the permission of the by-product recovery department.
The filling of an oil system is preceded by oil sampling to determine the oil’s acid neutralization number, the content of mechanical impurities, dissolved sludge and water content. The acid neutralization number should be below the maximum allowable value and the oil should be free of water, mechanical impurities and sludge.
In practice, the purity of turbine oil during operation should meet or be higher than putiry class 11.
If any water is found in the oil or its purity class is 12 or numerically higher, it is necessary to take drastic measures to purify the product. The monitoring of the condition of mineral turbine oil during operation is performed by oil sampling and analysis. Additionally, oil is regularly checked by eye for obvious things such as sludge and its qualitative characteristics are analysed.
If water, sludge and mechanical impurities were detected during a visual inspection, it is necessary to perform an additional analysis.
Purification of turbine oil is performed by special equipment designed and manuafactured by GlobeCore. Turbine oil purification units in the CMM-MT line are designed to remove mechanical impurities, water and gasses from turbine oil. The advantages of these units include the possibility to work in several modes simultaneously:
- filtration;
- filtration with heating and thermal vacuum purification of the oil; and
- oil degassing.
Other benefits of GlobeCore oil purification equipment are as follows:
- purification of oil by thermal vacuum method in one cycle;
- oil service life extension;
- stationary (shop facility) or mobile (remote locations);
- ease of use/automated processing; and
- spare parts come with all units.
The application of GlobeCore technologies for turbine oil purification allow not only for significant service life extension of the oil, but also for the improvement of operational reliability of turbines and reduced operating costs.