SAFETY & ENVIRONMENT

Avoiding lube oil fires

CARE AND PRECAUTIONS CAN PREVENT CATASTROPHIC DAMAGE
TERRY COOPER
FM GLOBAL

uring the period 1988-2003, a sample

of 23 companies in the utility, cogeneration, and pulp and paper industries
experienced
catastrophic
fires
involving turbine oil systems. The companies that included 19 power plants with turbines ranging from 40 to 820 MW suffered
an average property damage of $24 million
(indexed to todays dollars).
The mean outage due to the fires was
longer than six months. Lost generating capacity was in excess of 20 million MWh, with
three units having to be retired prematurely.
Fires in 17 of those units could have been
avoided if proper precautions and fire safety
measures had been taken. The remaining six
fires were in facilities whose management initiated some simple, low-cost protection measures.
The average property damage in the latter cases
was about $900,000. The mean outage time: less
than two weeks. What did these six companies
do that was different from the other 17?

Protect your company

Take a moment and visualize where your companys turbines are located: the exterior design
of the buildings where theyre housed, the interior layout, and the floor plan. Think about
what it cost to build those facilities, how much
is spent to operate them, and how much revenue those turbines generate for your company.
Now imagine what would happen to your
facilities if lube oil, under pressure, suddenly
sprayed from the turbines onto a hot surface nearby and sparked a fire. If you are an upper-level
executive, here are some questions to consider:
How likely is the possibility of a lube oil fire
in my facility?
What risk does this pose to my companys
bottom line?
How will this affect my companys overall
operations?
How could it affect our market share?
If you are a mid-level manager, consider:
How much heat and smoke would such a fire
produce?
How would the fire behave?
How much damage would it cause to my turbine and to the entire facility?
What would it take, and how long would it
take to put out that fire?
Do we have the proper protection to extinguish such a fire and protect our business?

Test results
In early 2004, FM Global (www.fmglobal
.com), a commercial and industrial property
insurer, conducted a series of 23 tests to
24 Turbomachinery International January/February 2005

assess the fire fighting arrangements in turbine halls. The study examined the impact of
various sprinkler configurations against
potential hazards associated with turbine
halls in power generation plants that have no
operating floors. [1]
Under a movable ceiling [2] inside a fire
laboratory at the FM Global Research
Campus,West Glocester, Rhode Island, engineers constructed a large-scale mockup of a
turbine hall, consisting of a lubeoil tank, tank
containment area, and the high- and intermediate-pressure sections of a turbine located on
a pedestal. That pedestal alone measured 15
ft. (4.5 m) wide x 20 ft. (6.1 m) long x 18 ft.
(5.5 m) high, with a grated walkway extending along one edge.
The objectives of the study were to:
Provide detailed visual documentation of
three potential fire scenarios
Examine new and existing protection
schemes to mitigate fire losses
Three different fire hazards were examined in the study:
Spray fires the result of oil being released
under high pressure, causing a spray effect
Pool fires the result of oil accumulating,
in depth, on a floor or in a contained area
Three-dimensional spill fires the result of
oil leaking under low pressure, cascading
from an elevated surface to a lower surface,
and igniting along the way
The fuel source for each of these tests was
a standard mineral oil with a flash point of
285 F (140 C) and a 20,000 BTU-perpound output. Once ignited, this particular
lube oil burns like gasoline.
The tests produced some surprising
results and gave some valuable lessons.
Spray fires cannot be extinguished by ceiling
sprinkler protection. A high-density, local
application sprinkler system [3] (water spray
systems or deluge systems) will control the
fire, but a multiple approach is needed to
minimize the damage.
Pool fires, it was found, can be extinguished by ceiling-based sprinklers, but
sprinkler density and ceiling height determine whether or not this happens. The
greater the distance between the sprinkler
and the fire, the greater the water density
needed to put out the flames. If there is a
large distance and a low water density, the
sprinkler system will be ineffective.
Three-dimensional spill fires, much like
spray fires, cannot be extinguished by ceiling
sprinklers. Properly designed local application sprinkler systems [3] will control the fire.
A multiple approach is needed to minimize
damage to your facility.

Immediate action

Shut oil off safely

Contain and drain the oil
Have an emergency response plan in place
Install properly designed sprinkler systems
The first three of the above are measures
that any company can take right now. In the
event of a turbine lube oil fire, its necessary
to terminate the oil flow as quickly as possible
to stop feeding the fire. However, immediately stopping the flow of lubricating oil can
result in costly damage to the equipment.
Therefore shut-down procedures should
be designed based on your site-specific conditions. They could take anywhere from 20 to
45 minutes. During this time, you should also
have a means of containing and draining
the leaking oil from the fire area to remove
the fires fuel source. To contain an oil leak,
companies should apply shields at potential
oil spray leak points in the lube system and
install curbing where necessary to stop the
spread of leaking oil.
By draining leaking oil to a safe containment area, the fire risk is minimized because
youre removing a potentially volatile fuel
source. And, of course, make sure your company has emergency response procedures in place
and that all employees are trained in these procedures. Hold indepth consultations with
experts in fire sprinkler system technology to
select a sprinkler system for your facility.

Long-term measures
In addition, companies and turbomachineryoperators should see to it that the following
measures are taken to prevent or mitigate the
consequences of these fires:
Use welded pipe construction wherever
possible
Only use flanged and threaded pipe connections to help in maintenance work on
equipment such as bearings, pumps, filters
and heat exchangers, and final terminations
for instruments
Consider using stronger, cleaner stainless
steel pipe, tubing, and fittings instead of carbon steel
Use guard piping [4] design concepts wherever possible to incorporate supply piping
within the return piping
Insulate against dissimilar material contact
at terminations
Avoid excessive vibrations [5]. They can
cause mechanical fatigue and consequent failure of the pressure boundary.
Examples of vibration problems are
loosening of bolts and nuts at flanged
joints, failure of threaded joints at valves
and pressure gauges. Failures at socket
weld (root valves where the valve and nipple assembly have been used to support a
pressure gauge) can produce a cantilever
or pendulum effect
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 Lock drain valves in the closed position on

reservoirs, storage tanks, and conditioning
equipment
Prevent released oil from contacting ignition
sources by providing proper electrical enclosures and spray shields at flanges to direct the
stream away from hot components
Ensure proper maintenance procedures
using documented, approved procedures and
qualified personnel
Avoid breeching the pressure boundary when
the system is in service (for example during
filter changing unless extreme caution and
isolation are provided)
Flush or purge residual oil from the system
prior to any hot work
Ensure vessels are vented to locations that
are free of ignition sources
Consider using checklists. This ensures that
systems that are dismantled for maintenance
are properly reinstalled before returning to
service
Consider using a less flammable oil
Various types of lube oil are used with turbomachinery equipment; some are less flammable than others. In the coming year, FM
Global plans to evaluate less flammable fluids
under specific power generation operating
conditions and study the possibilities of suitable alternatives to fixed fire protection systems in power generation facilities.
Footnotes

located in a separate room beneath that floor.

[2] A movable ceiling is one that can be raised or
lowered from 10 ft to 60 ft to test fires in different
storage sized facilities
[3] Local application sprinkler systems are custom-designed to protect specific types of equipment
by providing a water source closer to the targeted
area than ceiling sprinklers. These units are often
built to surround the equipment with sprinkler
heads mounted above, around, and below.
[4] Guard piping is a pipe within a pipe. Like a
double-hulled ship, the guard piping prevents the
release of the fluid running inside the inner pipe if
it is cracked or damaged.
[5] Vibration can be reduced by mounting instruments on racks, providing flexible metal hose
designed for the service, using snubbers in sensing lines to dampen hydraulic shock, providing
additional support on main lines and correcting
any rotating equipment imbalance.

Author
Terry Cooper is assistant vice president and
power generation industry engineering leader for
FM Global, a leading commercial and industrial
property insurer. He has 31 years of experience
in the power generation industry, working for a
power generation utility, as a consultant, and
with FM Global. Cooper is an active member on
several committees of the American Society of
Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and is a past
chair of the ASME Power Divisions Turbine
Generators and Auxiliaries Committee.

[1] In some turbine buildings, the turbine itself is

located on a solid floor while other equipment is

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January/February 2005 Turbomachinery International 25