Document KpQ1kb5x9RgqK166dV75K4jX

AUTUMN . POWERFAX .19 3 3 INDUSTRIAL POWER PLANT RECORDS By LEWIS J. SFORZINI, Power Development Engineer Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester, N. y. EDITOR'S NOTE:--This article will be run in two parts, and will be concluded in the Winter Issue of POWERFAX. ANY orderly registering of events, any physical, chem- JL X, ical, mechanical or elec trical magnitudes, any costs re sulting from the operation of pow er plant equipment, comprise a system`of power plant records. Every plant has from necessity some system, the degree of elab orateness depending on the size and type of business served by the plant, the alertness of those in im mediate charge, and the business policy of the owners or managers. As with any phase of business en deavor, the object of keeping rec ords is to increase profits, and a test that can be applied to the ad visability of keeping a certain rec ord is whether the current or pro spective use to which it can be put will net a return over and above the cost entailed. A simple power plant, serving a single-product industry generating all of its own steam and power can, and sometimes does, .get along without any separate power plant records at all; it merely adds the cost of materials and labor to the general plant costs. However, this plant has no means of knowing whether the power plant portion of its cost is excessive, whether it is changing with market factors, or whether it is comparable with like power plants. Obviously, cer tain records are justified even here.. Steam Boiler Plants- The largest angle cost incurred in any steam power plant is for THE matter of keeping proper records in an industrial power plant is a rather delicate subject and one frequently sidestepped by engineers. But it is very important for an engineer to be able to show with actual records what his plant is doing or to produce the evidence indicating the need for improved equipment. It means a lot for an engineer to be able to turn to his carefully kept records and answer any question which comes up with absolute accuracy. We believe this article by Mr. Sforzini will be found a very val uable contribution to this pointed subject. Here is Mr. L. J. Sforzini's back ground. Graduated from Cooper Union Institute of Technology in 1917 with the degree of Bachelor of Science in Mechanical and Elec trical Engineering. Worked for Webster Manufacturing Company, Tiffin, Ohio; for Miller Rubber Company, Akron, Ohio; in the Engineering and Maintenance De partment ofEastman Kodak Com pany, Rochester, New York, since October 1920 to date, the last six years as Power Development En gineer. -fuel, be it coal, oil, gas, wood or waste material. When one of the first three is used it comprises from 30% to 90% of the total cost of generating steam; when one of the latter is burned as a by-prod uct, it is usual to compute its cost on the basis of the cheapest alter nate fuel, allowing full credit to the process supplying it, so that the same percentage would hold:' Therefore, the most valuable and easiest record to keep is of the cost incurred and the quantity of fuel burned in a given period, such as monthly and yearly. The data for these are usually taken from submitted bills which give both these items, the quantities some times being remeasured. The costs should be f.o.b. buyer's plant. The cost records are usually kept in accordance with the company's accounting practice, but, in addi tion, there should be a file in the nature of a bound or loose-leaf notebook or other record medium, kept under the supervision of the man directly responsible for power plant operation where these costs and quantities are entered system atically. For coal it is important that- the source, together with a proximate analysis and heating value, be obtained periodically, and also be filed with these. For oil fuel the same data should be filed and for natural gas the heat ing value per cubic foot, obtained at frequent intervals, should be included. To use these records with full profit some further ones are neces sary. The best of these is either the gross or net steam generated by the boilers, to procure which would require certain fairly ex pensive appliances which cannot always be justified; often alterna tive indexes are employed. If the steam is purely for heating, a good rough index is a record of the local weather temperatures, obtained from the nearest U. S. Weather Bureau, and kept preferably in the same file as the other records, in the form of degree days. A com parison of like months of various years with corrections for occu pancy, variations in degree days, etc., will quickly show whether or not the 'fuel consumed is as it *A 9 CRIMDEBN00000171