Comments

I'd say that Matt is right, It's probably there so you might see it and not bump your head on the end of the stairway riser while walking around checking the equipment in the plant.

Looks like the manual control arm for a damper in the air ducts that would be used to control airflow into or somewhere around the boiler, I assume.

This is a boiler nameplate from Babcock and Wilcox boiler company. It describes the amount of steam evaporated in thousands of pounds per hour and the pressure and temperature of the unit also with the type of air preheater supplied and the type of coal mills that came with the boiler setup supplied. I also would love to have that piece of boiler nameplate history for my wall, but JEY has the first dibs on it. Would be neat , though, it probably would be a risk to reenter the site and get the nameplate off and out without being caught.

Adam is right. They are the throttle valves for the steam turbine that open in a set sequence, depending on the "load" that the unit is carrying at the time. The springs help to keep the valves closed tightly and keep them from vibrating when opened and admitting steam to the turbine. There is a valve gear arrangement that would be used to open and close these valves. The setup varies with the manufacturer of the turbine, each one is different.

Hydrogen gas was put into the generator to help cool it and carry off the heat from generating electricity. The generator is normally all sealed up unlike the preceding open picture of the generator. This hydrogen gas is then cooled with heat exchangers,(hydrogen coolers), that are either in each side or end of the generator. This keeps everything cooler so the generator and all associated parts and windings don't melt down. I know that hydrogen gas is highly flammable, but in the generator casing it is kept at 99.5% purity, so it will not ignite without oxygen in it.

This is the generator stator winding end turns and the rotor is in the middle,(part that spins and is fed the DC current and breaks the lines of magnetism thereby inducing a voltage in the stator windings),(whew, a mouthful). Anyway, what you see as the black specks is old dry insulation that has deteriorated and fell off of the windings. Also, you might see some fiberglass fibers that has fallen off of the winding ties that you see that hold the windings from being loose and vibrating. The red color is the varnish insulating paint that covers the windings to insulate them. Hope this helps to explain a little more about the construction of a generator and power plant workings.

Probably one of the coal pulverizers or coal mills that grind up the coal to powder consistency to be fed to the boiler to produce steam. Could be a Ball mill or a Bowl mill. I'm more familiar with the Bowl type mills and the Atrita or impingement mills.

I'd say that they are a couple of small forced draft fans that would feed primary air for combustion of the pulverized coal in the boiler furnace.

I'm with some of you guys that said they are old "freq changers" or MG sets. A lot of these older power plants had 25HZ power to run the older equipment and when they upgraded or added newer equipment in them they needed these MG sets or "Frequency changers" to run their older equipment that was still running that used 25 HZ power instead of 60HZ power.

Shawn is right. It's probably the steam jet air ejector condenser for the steam air ejectors that would help to draw a vacuum on the condensers that are under the turbines on the generating floor of the power plant. Condensers are indirect contact heat exchangers used here.

Gratefulzenz is right Scooter. Sorry, but you are way off scooter.

I'd venture a guess at what Joe said, it's a circ water pump for the cooling water for the condenser. The name plate on the base says: C.F. Wheeler Mfg. Co. Phila. Pa.

These are the steam coils in the forced draft fans ducting that would have been used to preheat the air going to the boiler burners for better combustion of the pulverized coal. The steam coils were mainly used during cooler or cold weather to preheat the air from the forced draft blower fans.

I ditto what Joe says about the condenser and tubes and staybolts.

This would be the condenser that I told you about some frames ago before. This condenses the spent steam from the turbines back into condensate to be put back into the boiler feedwater system for making more steam again in the cycle. The steam from the turbines goes into the condenser on the out side of the tubes in the condenser and the cooling water flows through the tubes to condense the steam back into condensate collected in the well in the bottom of the condenser. Hope that this clears up your confusion about the condenser.