Eli the Ice Man, glad I remembered you

Image of a small inductor coil 

One can never be sure of the moment where something you learned in nuke school pops into your head at the strangest time.

Most of us are aware much of the information covered in training will not be applicable after your nuke days are finished. There are exceptions, my moment occurred during a job interview where the interviewer asked me the difference between Kilowatts (KW) and Kilo Volts Amperes (KVA). By the way, if you wondering my interview was for a sales engineer position.

I remembered kilowatts were units of power which were equal the product of voltage and current. As for the question posed I knew the relation of KW and KVA had something to do with the lag of the current due to the inductive portion of the current.

Then the phrase, "Eli the Ice-man", came back to me in an instant which I had not thought about since I completed Nuclear Field “A” school over 15 years ago in Orlando, Florida.

With this I composed myself and explained how current lags voltage in an inductive circuit as a result of the time required to generate its magnetic field and how kilowatts expressed the power available to do work and KVA measured the induction component of the power.

The interviewer seemed impressed since I do not hold a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. I still do not understand why I was able to recall Eli during a pressured situation. I guess I should give props to the Navy’s training as painful as it could be at times. Have you ever had a moment like this as an Ex Nuke??

Electrical Operator, “Shift the electric plant to Normal Full Power Line Up”

Image of a Syncroscope

For all of you electrical operators out there does this scenario sound familiar? You are in a half power lineup on the port turbine generator.  The Starboard Turbine Generator (TG)is ready to go and you need to bring the TG on the bus restoring the plant to a NFPL and restore the ability the answer bells on both main engines. You know the drill.

What are the things which must occur before you shut a breaker?  For starters the voltage and frequencies of the incoming load and the running bus must match and the synchroscope needs to rotating clockwise prior to shutting the breaker within the gray area at the 12 o clock position on the gauge. Do you remember why? In short, varying frequencies on the generator could speed up or slow down causing damage or excessive power transients. Likewise a variance in voltages can result in transients as well. Proper shutting of the breaker using the synchroscopes ensures the two buses are on phase in addition to ensure the incoming bus picks up the load. 

In any case, normally plant shifts are uneventful. I recall I was on watch as RO and the EO Under Instruction, (UI) was doing a plant shift for qualification. The shift qualified Electric Operator, UI, and the Engineer Officer of the Watch (EOOW) talked through the plant shift prior to operating the plant. Finally, the EOOW gave the order to perform the shift. 

In retrospect, I am not sure of the synchroscope’s position when the UI attempted to shut the breaker. Let’s say the position was nowhere close from the loud boom everyone heard.  After I looked at my panel my pump configuration I lost a pump on each side i.e.1 Slow- 1 Slow. I had two pumps running on each side before the shift.

After the restoring the plant E Div ensured no damage had occurred to the breaker.  On this day we were lucky, for those of you who might not have been so fortunate what was the craziest thing you have seen during a messed up plant shift and what happened afterwards? 

Image courtesy of  http://metersandinstruments.yokogawa-usa.com/product/analog-switchboard-instruments/ab40-synchroscope-switchboard-meters