STEAM SYSTEMS


A Thermal Energy engineer using a temperature probe to identify failed traps or blockages in the system.


being safely discharged, it powers through a system, causing damage. With time at a premium it tends to be more economical in terms of cost and time for sites to replace damaged steam traps rather than remove, repair, and re-install them. Due to their moving parts, mechanical steam traps such as inverted bucket, float and ball, or thermodynamic, are subject to failure, breakdown, and wear and tear. With an average annual failure rate of between 5% and 10%, traditional steam traps are a real contributor to a site’s backlog maintenance bill; some large healthcare facilities have hundreds of traps needing to be surveyed and replaced each year. As a result, high maintenance costs and extended downtime are often seen as part and parcel of keeping a steam system running. It is this thinking that has led to the heating and hot water backlog maintenance issues which are now affecting healthcare estates. However, the latest developments in steam trapping technology are challenging this view.


A lasting solution to an ongoing problem


In response to the sort of costly and time-consuming issues highlighted in the text panel above, an increasing number of hospitals are turning to the new generation of steam trap technology to permanently solve the problem and disrupt the usual pattern of: failure, survey, replace. By using process information, and specifying innovative products, such as the GEM steam trap, performance exceeds those of mechanical traps, with the added benefit of having no moving parts to break or fail. These ‘venturi orifice traps’, as they are often known, use an orifice and multi-staged throat design to manage condensate flow rate over a varying load. The orifice is sized to ensure that any


66 Health Estate Journal February 2019


start-up condensate is discharged quickly, minimising the risk of water hammer. Once up to running load, the condensate is discharged continuously through the orifice as it is created. As hot condensate flows through the orifice it moves from high pressure conditions to the low pressure, multi-staged throat. This sudden drop in pressure causes a known percentage of the condensate to re- evaporate as ‘flash steam’. Restricting the re-expansion of this flash steam creates a localised, variable back pressure within the trap throat, slowing down the condensate passing through the orifice. This ensures that over variable loads, the orifice is always protected from live steam loss with a condensate seal. This is essential to accommodating the variability in industrial loads, and is achieved without the need for moving parts. By trapping in this way, no ‘live’ steam can be lost through the trap, as there is no way for the trap to ‘fail open’.


Reduced maintenance burden Since there are fewer elements to manage and service in these new generation steam traps, adopting this technology reduces the maintenance burden on operators and engineers, helping to clear a hospital’s backlog maintenance bill. These products also often come with a much longer guarantee than mechanical traps; indeed a 10-year performance guarantee is not uncommon. This further reduces maintenance costs, since annual spend on replacement traps is removed entirely. It is this maintenance saving, coupled with the savings in live steam loss, which helps sites to achieve an average payback of 24 months or less in many cases. Moving away from traditional steam trapping methods, and


Sam Mawby


Sam Mawby, M.Eng, has worked in the steam industry for almost 20 years. After completing a degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Swansea, he joined Gardner Energy Management as an engineer. In 2008 he joined the Executive Management Team, and was appointed Thermal Energy’s Technical director following the company’s purchase of Gardner Energy Management. He has developed an intimate knowledge of boiler plants and steam systems, and worked across many areas of the business, including heading up the technical team, and managing manufacture and supply chain functions. He has travelled extensively to successfully


deliver the company’s GEM steam trap technology into industrial systems and develop solutions directly with energy and sustainability managers worldwide. Based at Thermal Energy’s UK headquarters in Bristol, he continues to expand operations globally, and also provides training and solves technical challenges in the many countries the business currently operates in. He also has ‘numerous patents’ to his name.


embracing developments such as GEM, is proving a popular solution for Trust boards and healthcare engineering teams alike. Not only does it permanently solve reoccurring maintenance issues and eliminate backlog maintenance caused by unreliable mechanical steam traps, but it also improves fuel efficiency, as live steam is not wasted. This is particularly important to NHS hospitals, since projects that can show an energy payback within five years or less can benefit from government funding solutions such as the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s (BEIS) interest-free loan – through Salix. Payments are agreed every six months to ensure that projects can be cash-positive throughout. Once installed, with no moving parts to break or fail, maintenance and operations professionals are able to prioritise other areas of deferred maintenance not relating to steam traps, further decreasing the backlog.


Break the backlog


Steam allows hospitals to keep patients clean and warm. If equipment is out of action or malfunctioning it can directly impact patient care and staff comfort. Ultimately, caring for patients is any hospital’s top priority. However caring properly for a steam system is undeniably a part of this. There is no ‘silver bullet’ to reducing backlog maintenance in the healthcare system. However, having effective processes and technologies in place to cope with the constant needs of a steam system can go a long way to relieving the problems that hospitals and Trusts face. What’s more, such an approach saves the Trust money in the long run through greater efficiency, and ensures that a system is operating safely.


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