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How NYNE Solved a Persistent Problem With an Emergency Valve Replacement

Covanta is a company who literally turns trash into treasure. Their Niagara Falls garbage burning plant recycles waste and transforms it into usable electricity and steam energy for multiple industrial hosts nearby. That energy is generated at the plant through nine boilers and two steam turbines. They utilize steam conditioning valves at the plant for turbine bypass and to supplement the turbine output if customer demand is high.

The existing valves were over 50 years old and were scheduled for replacement during the spring outage with new Fisher valves and desuperheater system.

However, before they had a chance to put their replacement plans into action, disaster struck. One of their old valves shattered, and when the backup system came on, they realized that it was having similar problems and would likely fail within days.

This disaster recovery job required emergency work on valves which had no information available let alone drawings to aid our engineers to know what we were getting into until the valves were opened and inspected. On top of that, the valves were not accessible but still needed to be fixed as soon as possible because the entire power plant relied on those valves functioning to continue operation. An emergency valve fix meant working around the clock, and Covanta needed a partner to help with these drastic efforts.

Enter NYNE Mechanical

Here at NYNE Mechanical, we don’t just manage problems; we solve them. As an NECI and Northeast Controls Joint Venture, we have a team of engineers and technicians who are leaders in their field and backed by high quality Emerson brands. So, when it came to Covanta’s valve emergency, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work.

Covanta arranged for scaffolding to be erected, so that our NYNE team was able to access the valves in question and NYNE dispatched our mobile shop, complete with a lathe, tooling, and other necessary equipment ready for a worst-case scenario. We repaired the upper and lower bonnet assemblies which included manufacturing new bushings and replacing the welded in water attemperator seat. The biggest challenge was to make the triple seated valve plug hit the attemperator seat and the two steam seats inside the valve body at the same time, without the drawings and in-depth information that are usually needed in this type of undertaking. One of our engineers came up with the idea to make a mock valve plug out of threaded rod and threaded on valve plugs. The plugs were adjusted until all three seats hit at the same time and then it was removed from the valve and replicated onto the real valve plug. This plug also needed extensive weld repair that our technicians were able to complete. The valve was reassembled, the Fisher actuator was rebuilt, and we then recalibrated the Fisher DVC6200 using our state-of-the-art Fisher Valve Link software.

This teamwork and collaboration paid off. Once our NYNE team had finished their emergency repairs, the customer was able to continue their energy production and steam distribution that Sunday night. We were able to resolve the immediate crisis and did whatever it took to meet our customer’s needs.

At NYNE, we are proud to offer these emergency services, but our passion is to help you avoid them all together. Our NYNE team will work on weekends and into all hours of the night to ensure that your operations aren’t negatively impacted by these emergency situations longer than required. NYNE outshines competitors by integrating all of the services involved in plant management and maintenance, so you don’t have to contract with numerous companies. We work with the Emerson Impact Partner Network to cover valve and mechanical services, reliability, field services, control system services, instrument field services, and data collection and analysis. We are your “one-stop-shop” for all your plant management, strategic planning, and daily needs.

If you’re looking for an all-in-one company who can assist you with streamlining your plant management by consolidating services, contact us at NYNE Mechanical today!