Reverse engineering of gear shaft for gasturbine (30.000 rpm)

Our customer - an energy company with its headquarter in Ireland - contacted Stork Gears & Services with an urgent budget and time request for the repair of a Flender Graffenstaden gearbox located at Aghada power station. The gearbox application is part of an open cycle gas turbine, with a capacity of approximately 90 MW. ESB Aghada Station - commissioned in 1980 - is one of the largest electricity generating facilities in Ireland. The power station produces electricity from the burning of natural gas with a capacity of 1000 MW. Aghada is strategically located close to the entrance of Cork Harbour. For this repair project, ESB needed to reverse engineer a shaft for an atomizing air compressor driven off the gearbox of their gas turbine. They were looking for a partner with a high degree of expertise in reverse engineering and high speed balancing work. Besides, a quick turnaround on a tight timeline was necessary in order to get back in operation within 3 weeks. Stork Gears & Services was able to meet these requirements. The atomizing air compressor shaft and impellor, the drive gear and quill shaft were shipped to our workshop in Rotterdam. After dismantling and inspection of the gearbox we started with the manufacturing of the new gears. Scope of work (summary) Dismantling and inspection Measure and CAD drawings Order raw material (Lloyds class) Pre-machine parts on lathe Grinding teeth before heat treatment Heat treatment Machine parts to grinding dimensions Milling keyway Grinding final dimensions of the shaft Final grinding teeth Assembling thrust collar, gearbox and impellor Final dynamic balancing We successfully completed the whole project within 3 weeks. Our customer appreciated our professional and fast approach.		Location Cork, Ireland Aghada Generating Station Market segment Power industry Total completion time 3 weeks Gearbox details Flender Graffenstaden Pinion shaft rotation speed 30.000 rpm Ready for balancing
Old (left) and new gears