Emergency Lube Oil Pump Testing

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The purpose of the emergency bearing oil pump equipment on your turbine is to ensure sufficient lube oil flow is maintained to prevent bearing damage on a coastdown during an upset. It is also there to provide cooling oil flow for a period of time after reaching zero speed to prevent melting bearing babbit (e.g. emergency trip with a hot rotor). Such an example of the need for the EBOP would be due to a loss of AC power trip event or main pump failure.

On modern turbine equipment, the DC motor driven lube oil pump, 125vdc battery bank, motor starter and various pressure switches and controls typically comprise the emergency bearing oil supply system. On older steam turbines it is not unusual to still find small vertical steam turbine driven pumps supplying auxiliary and emergency lube oil flows. 

EBOP testing is a multilevel, comprehensive test to demonstrate the integrity of your steam or gas turbine’s emergency lube oil supply system 

  This examination monitors the following data points at 0.5 sec sample intervals:

· Bearing lube oil header pressure

· AC Pump current

· DC Pump Current

· Back up battery bank voltage decay (thus capacity) during a simulated turbine coast down