During the Planning and Scheduling process of our Unit 3 Turbine Upgrade Project at Rocky Mountain Pumped Storage facility we were tasked with finding ways to trim the schedule. Many ideas were shared and some even implemented. Our Senior Engineer had been looking at a system that was gaining notoriety in the metrology industry for attaining measurements with phenomenal precision using laser technology. This instrument could be used to perform critical measurements for "As Found" and "As Left" conditions pertaining to disassembly and reassembly of our pumped storage turbine and generator. The sales representative from FARO was contacted and a demonstration was scheduled. During the demonstration our supervisors and engineers were amazed with the equipment and the possible uses. The next hurdle was convincing the Vice President of Power Operations that this tool could possibly save us weeks and provide more precise measurements, ultimately ensuring the reassembled unit could be held within tighter tolerances. The FARO Laser Tracker was purchased and three associates were trained in its use. Immediately the Project Manager submitted a list of critical hold points during the disassembly for attaining specific measurements. These "As Found" measurements would be critical during the field-machining and reassembly of the pump/turbine and motor/generator. Most of these measurements were attained in one shift, as opposed to taking days using the conventional methods. Our Project Manager began to task us with other measurements that seemed unattainable, but the Laser Tracker Techs accepted each challenge. Challenge 1) Measure the wicket gate bores to check for proper alignment and concentricity to determine if line boring is required. Measurement of Wicket Gate bore alignment is typically a very time consuming process. The commonly used methods typically require a significant amount of set up time at each wicket gate. Since we would need to measure a total of twenty gates with three bores each, management and engineering personnel at Rocky Mountain realized a great potential for time savings if these measurements could be expedited. We were able to take advantage of these savings using our laser tracker and a little ingenuity. Challenge 2) Utilize the FARO Tracker to reverse engineer our thrust bearing oil cooler tube sheet. A CAD drawing would be created and used as the template for fabrication of new cooler tube sheets and ultimately the construction of two spare thrust bearing coolers. As before, we aggressively accepted this challenge even with the limited experience we had with this machine. We started using many of the concepts we had previous experience with. This task really challenged us to use many of the features available in this high tech tool. These are just two of the challenges that I've shared with you in this abstract. There are many others that we plan to share with the professionals attending HydroVision in 2008. We have found the FARO Laser Tracker to be a very powerful tool. It has many applications as long as you have an Imagination and Think Outside the Box.
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