ENGINES An advanced distillation system (as pictured) was placed at
Fort Belvoir to support the Army Reserve National Guard (ARNG) LUH operations there. As a result, the ARNG is now in the process of procuring additional units for operation sites worldwide. In the words of one CW4 maintenance chief:
Trust me, that economic fact alone is enough to bring tears
of joy to the owner of the blades in row two. The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is a big proponent of using on-site distillation. It was the first helicopter organization to realize the value in having on-site distillation capability for its operational bases. The requirement that led to the acquisition of 25 distillation units was driven primarily by the need to maintain the Turbomeca Ariel 2C2CG engines powering its HH65 Dauphins to the level of water purity required by the Turbomeca warranty. The rotating components and their protective coatings require a high level of rinse water purity not reliably found in off-the-shelf water. In 2012, Petroleum Helicopters (PHI), under contract to Shell Oil Company, installed distillers at the operating bases in Barrow and Dead Horse, AK, in support of the air operations off shore. Distillers were also deployed to support Red Crescent air operations in Saudi Arabia, also managed by PHI, to guarantee a source for the purest water no matter where located.
“The water distiller is considered an essential piece of equipment here at the DCARNG AASF. It is an FAA requirement to use distilled water to wash and rinse the Turbomeca Arriel 1E2 engine. Using it on the components such as the magnesium transmissions also reduces the possibility of corrosion on mating surfaces as well. “The other thing we do here is rinse the engines every 100 hours to clean corrosive contaminates and dirt from the compressor blades. This 1E2 engine has no particle separator, so every bit of dirt, dust, grass and moisture goes straight through the engine during flight. By doing the rinse more frequently than the 600- hour requirement, we are sure to extend the life of the compressor because we find almost no corrosion on the compressor and turbine blades during inspection. The distiller we have will fill up both sides of our engine wash machine. This is enough water to both provide soap solution and rinse water for both engines without stopping during the process. Every unit that maintains the UH- 72 aircraft would benefit by having this water distiller on hand. The cost of the water distiller is much less than the costs to replace
compressor sections down the road.” Maintenance personnel can be sure of the water quality and track the quantity used to be certain the rinsing process is being carried out as required. Although the helicopter engine of our discussion has centered on the various models of Turbomeca, other OEMs are in agreement with the use of pure water. Trust me on this, if we look in the operations and maintenance manuals of Rolls-Royce, Pratt & Whitney and GE, pure water is also their recommendations.
The Economics of On-site Distillers The cost for the on-site turbine rinse distiller is offset by the savings in early engine removals and expensive engine repairs or overhauls. Heck, it can even be shown that an on-site turbine rinse distiller will pay for itself in less than two years, just in the cost of bottled water alone. This depends on the size of the unit and the quantity of water used — and this is just the beginning of the savings. Most distillers available for the aviation community require a pressurized water source (tap or pumped from a stream), a drain and 115/220 vAC electrical power.
A typical installation includes the distiller and pretreatment
filters. The pretreatment filters are only needed if the water you are drawing is really nasty. The pretreatment filtering is used to protect the internal components of the distiller but does not affect the output quality of the final water. Pretreatment is not used at all in many cases. In most cases, the distilled water is run through a de-ionization polishing process to finish it.
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HelicopterMaintenanceMagazine.com December 2014 | January 2015
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