Better than New - Making Changes to DC Water's Scum Pumps and Grit Pumps for Improved Performance, Longer Equipment Life and Reduced Maintenance

摘要

Pursuit of reliability-centered maintenance and reduced equipment costs has evolved to include a program of refurbishing and enhancing primary scum pumps and grit pumps at the District of Columbia's Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant. The equipment is continuously challenged by aggressive process conditions that exploit mechanical weaknesses and drive up repair and replacement expenses. Through internal partnership amongst the utility's operations, process engineering and maintenance departments, and external partnership with a regional machine shop, the equipment was investigated for root causes of failure, and improvements were implemented to increase mean time between failures. Process and equipment monitoring has been tailored to identify initial signs of failure, to allow for scheduling of planned maintenance instead of having to react to sudden equipment failure. The pursuit is a journey of continuous improvement, adapting with updates to improve performance results and longer equipment life.