This paper relates my engineering experiences, responsibilities, problem solving and decision making, from two jobs of work experience or a total of six years. Furthermore, this paper relates why Mechanical Engineering degree will help in these areas.
The work described here takes place on the Hanford reservation at two different Nuclear sites. On both sites the work involves engineering and related tasks (design, construction, testing, and documentation) of piping systems and piping subsystems for nuclear construction piping code, followed by system turnover to the owner and testing by the owner. Both plants were completed and are operational.
The first plant is a governmental experimental liquid metal cooled breeder reactor (LMR) called the Fast Flux Test Facility (F.F.T.F.) the second plant is a commercial power generating reactor. This reactor is a Boiling water reactor (B.W.R.) called the Washington Public Power Supply System #2 (W.P.P.S.S.2.) Both plants are located in southeastern Washington, near the cities of Kennewick, Richland, and Pasco.
In both cases I received a reduction in force (R.O.F.) due to plant completion; however, in the last job an offer for transfer was made. (I declined to stay on the west coast.)
Fast Flux Test Facility (F.F.T.F.) A liquid metal cooled breeder reactor.
Employer: Bechtel Power Corp. Job#8776 Richland WA. 99352.
Employed from February 2, 1977 to September 29, 1978.
The following is a list of supervisors and their titles:
William Nastick (Lead Quality Control Engineer)
Daniel Pierce (Lead Piping Engineer)
Carrol Bybee (Superintendent)
(02-03-77) The first position was Clerk grade C. After the probation period of 6 months, an offer of jumping two grade categories was made, to Construction Assistance grade F. This promotion ranks the same grade of the Co-op Students. Note that after this promotion there were only two grade promotions left (G & H) and suggestions were made to plan for the future and continue to develop and improve job knowledge for a higher and more responsible position
The clerk's position in a carbon steel pipe shop included, obtaining or making blueprints of a piping subsystem being fabricated in the shop, and filling out warehouse requisition for the material and tools needed for this fabrication. The position included developing and starting a card file system for keeping track of the pipe being fabricated in the shop, and where the pipe is stored in a lay down yard until it was needed for installation in the plant. In a short time the job grew to handling a second pipe fabrication shop, this was the stainless steel pipe shop (this shop did most of the pipe fabrication for the liquid metal piping to cooling of the reactor).
Computers were starting to find favor at this time in material control, and after discussing the card file system with them, all of the data from the card file was soon transferred to material control indexes that were updated weekly.
One of the Field Engineers in the pipe fabrication office took a vacation, and his job was to review blue prints for dimensional and material requirements, but mostly find or calculate missing dimensions on drawings. As the pipe clerk position did not require this task, it did allow one to demonstrate his abilities, and the engineering department took note of this. The same chance to demonstrating drafting abilities by correcting some drawings that had been miss calculated. These action led to a promotion (08-20-77) to Construction Assistance - Piping Department grade F. Again this promotion ranks the same grade of the Co-op Students
Working for the Piping Department was different from the pipe fabrication shops. Responsibilities changed from piping subsystems to the full piping systems. The drawings grew in complexity from single pipe drawings to Piping and Instrumentation Drawings (P. & I. D's) and System Flow Drawings. The P.& I. D. drawings would show all of the pipe, pipe hangers, valves, electrical conduit, instruments, tanks and pumps in any room or cell in the plant. The Flow drawings resembled electrical schematics showing the main components and appurtenances and directional flow for all the electrical connections, air piping, fluid piping, control valves, electrical switches, and instruments in the system and how they would interact. Skills for reading these process flow drawings along with the P.& I. D.s were now required.
Working now under the direction of a system engineer, the new duties were to performed field inspections of piping and instrumentation installations, doing as-built drafting of B31.1 and ASME Class 1 piping, and finally prepared system final documentation of B31.1 and ASME Class 1 documentation of piping and instrumentation. This required the verification of materials used and the documentation of the field welds used in the field, including the preparations N-5 DATA forms and NPP1 forms. These forms are ASME Class 1 forms for modifying another vendor's pipe fabrication.
Verification of a system completion is done by a visual system walk down, along with checking the accuracy of the piping drawings and noted and prepared a system punch list for the piping systems, or missing or broken instruments. The system punch lists were then presented in a weekly meeting. Training on the dangers and precautions of liquid sodium (the liquid metal coolant used in the reactor) spill was required for the next phase of employment.
The last two months of employment with Bechtel was for Quality Control Engineering as an Inspector. Duties required visual inspection, and verification of instrument installation, including the inspection of all type of hanger used along with ultrasonic nondestructive testing of anchor bolts. This required the written acceptance and documenting of all hangers categories under the criteria specified by field engineering.
This concludes my engineering experience with Bechtel. I would like to say that the plant held a sustained reaction two years after I left the site. Further information is starting to be released to the public of this experimental reactor, although the current talk is to decommission this reactor.
W.P.P.S.S. Nuclear Project #2, a Boiling water reactor.
On site Construction Richland, WA. 99352
Supervisors:
Larry Reader (Project Manager)
Ruth Patchen (Construction Coordinator)
Wendell Phillips (Construction Manager)
Rex Colwell (Project Superintendent)
Employed: July 1979 to October 1983
Title: Test Coordinator - Engineering Aid - Assistant Construction Coordinator
The second long term experience involving engineering was Washington Public Power Supply System #2. This is a commercial power generating facility. This 1100 M-Watt BWR (boiling water reactor) is currently on-line. Johnson Controls contract at this site was to install most of the mechanical instrumentation and some of the electrical instrument installations.
On this site my duties included scheduling and coordinating pneumatic and hydrostatic testing of ASME & B31.1 instrument piping installations. Because of the nature of the "Test Coordinator" position, responsibilities included safety tagging root valves for the piping systems being tested. These tags were clearly marked with "DANGER" and were not to be operated for the safety of the personnel on site.
Prior to the testing of the instrument installation, a field inspection of piping and instrumentation installations is made. During these inspections a comparison of the as-built drawings and the installation is made. Any discrepancy in the drawing from the actual installation is noted.
As stated in the piping codes, for nuclear piping, the test pressure is to be one and a half times the operating pressure, but shall not exceed the maximum allowable pressure for any component in the system. The test pressure shall be continuously maintained for a minimum time of ten minutes and for such additional time as may be necessary to conduct the examinations for leakage. This is true for either pneumatic or hydrostatic testing. First one has to obtain the operating pressure and calculate the test pressure. However in the case of hydrostatic testing, because the piping would run vertically between floors, further calculate the head pressure to verify the test pressure of the system would not exceed the design pressure of any component of the system. At the time of the test, it was required to demonstrate to the Authorized Inspector (a Professional Engineer for Hartford Insurance) that the design pressure for the system was not being exceeded. To help solve the problems of the repetitive calculations for these tests, I made tables with the aid of a computer that 1) listed the maximum head pressures possible, and 2) listed for the minimum test pressure for this system. After the system was completed and the subsystem pressure tested, information would be supplied the owner. With this information the owner could do a full system pressure test and/or performance test the system.
I was soon transferred to the design group. In order to advance to this higher position I had to attend an in-house class involving the design requirements for the piping systems I was designing. The class taught me that the criteria for industrial design piping are dictated by ASME or ANSI codes. And that most common failure criteria are specified as maximum allowable stress and deflection. Sometimes a maximum natural period of vibration or minimum natural frequency is also specified. This was the case for ASME class 1 piping and components. Usually the stresses applied to pipe were under allowable for the material being used. The most critical criterion was the seismic requirements.
Normally at design stage a cookbook type of guideline was used for requirements. These are usually conservative approximation based on the above code criteria. However in some cases this cookbook approach could not be used due to interference with other installations. In such a case rigorous calculation had to be performed before a design is finished. At this point the seismic group would take the design and attempt to help the designer find an alternate scheme to satisfy the requirements. In addition to the stress and deflection criteria a set of piping will have maximum natural period or minimum natural frequency criteria to avoid resonance and subsequent failure similar to the famous "Tacoma Narrows Bridge". Further more the natural frequency or period of piping and its supports depend on the geometry and deflection under its own weight.
The following information is required for a pipe analysis to be conducted per the above discussion:
a) Specify the desired pipe or tubing including material used.
b) Specify the desired design pressure.
c) Specify the design and operating temperature.
d) Specify if the joints are welded, flanged etc.
e) Specify if bends or elbows will be used.
f) Specify the contents such as water, steam, or air.
g) Specify the code requirements.
h) Specify if there is any insulation.
i) Sketch or draw showing the dimensions and routing.
However this design position was short lived. An offer and a request were made by supervisors to transfer me to the Construction Coordinator's group (management). This was made because of my past work experience and continuing education involving computers. The computer's ability to track and manage large quantity of data was essential for this project. Control Data Corporation was the supplier for the software for the stress analysis group, but no software was offered that would satisfy the needs for the scheduling of engineering, construction, testing, and turn over of ASME & B31.1 instrument piping. Having learned three high level languages. I had become my company's computer programmer and operator for reports, indexes, and presentations. Responsibilities included developing software for reports, scheduling, and tracking of all phases of construction for piping and instruments installations. Train newly hired engineers and drafters on how to carry out their system design or work. In one of my employee evaluation it was noted that I was "very patient in training new personnel." Further more, the position required involvement with scheduling for construction (time lines), and was an active participant in weekly contractor meetings to identify and resolve restraint problems, that were preventing the completion of the site's instrumentation. This involved interfacing with owner and other contractors (working as a team) to schedule the completion of the entire project.
I would like to note that I was aware of only two instrument rack that after the performance test were unsatisfactory due to the location of the racks, and to solve this problem the instruments were move to a local instrument. Johnson Control had the responsibility of around 100 instruments racks and 1,000 local instrument installations for a grand total of over 3,000 instrument installation. This concludes my engineering experience with Johnson Controls Inc. I would like to say that the plant still currently producing power.