F Hydro Tasmania Huge effort prevents major damage at Poatina An enormous effort by the at Poatina has resulted in limiting @ potentially serious incident at the Poatina Pow On Saturday July 2, the Poatina No 3 machine isolating valve failed allowing high pressure (azo0psi) penstock water to escape, causing the alarms to sound. While the escaping water was not enough to threaten the station with flooding, it was a potentially dangerous situation requiring shutting down the power station and draining the penstock, Station Generating Asset Manager, Rod Vogel, said the response process was put to the test and worked admirably “No one was injured and there was no consequential damage to plant or the environment,” Rod said. “After draining and a mot detailed inspection it became apparent that the failure was worse than frst thought with 20 of the 26, 7omm bolts that hold the two halves of the body oft jogether completely severed, “Once the situation was contained, the investigation phase began in earnest with the collection of broken bolts, ultra-sonie testing of all remaining bolts on all valves and removal and ‘examination ofthe offending valve itselt Engineers and metallurgists a looked at numerous theories to explain this failure, The logical and favoured culprit was aver pressurisation but there was no evide support this theory. The only explanation was that ne with Yaks hel Leone aa et ena 4 al Coan Pouce eee) talk careers ry re the bolts had failed from fatigue, possibly due to inadequate tensioning when re-assembled in 1983, ‘With all ofthis done in remarkable time, re-filing of the penstock commenced on 2 August,” Rod sald. “During the refill a small leak was noticed on a pressure tapping point weld, just upstream from the No 3 penstock flange. “More ultra-sonic testing of the other 24 pressure tappings, four per ‘machine just upstream from the penstack flange, revealed that many had cracks already and were prone to both leakage and crack propagation.” Wiile the remedial work was being undertaken a new emerged as the cause of the original bolt fail tial culprit AAS part of the dam safety program, a selsmic recorder had been installed near the top of the penstock and it was a recording from this device that identified @ small but consistent vibration in the hours leading up to the inital station alarm and this vibration appeared to cease at @ suspiciously coincidental time to the station alarm being initiated, With this additional information the possibility of an over pressurisation event, a resonant oscillation in the penstock, became more likely. The seal arrangement on this p ssociated with a phenomena ular valve type oe ety eta safety commitm Eo) a Co ean eee hes for energy stars een eet ete