IAI Instructed Piping Designers Tour DTE Energy Power Plant

by wbeazley on August 2, 2009

DTE Energy gave some newly trained piping designers their first look at a working piping application in a tour of the Belle River Power Plant in, China Township, MI. The tour of the power plant completed a 6 week training course at Macomb Community College for unemployed automotive designers funded by Michigan’s No Worker Left Behind program. DTE Energy serves 2.1 million electric customers in Southeast Michigan through its Detroit Edison subsidiary. 16 students and 3 instructors toured the plant. The tour was arranged by John C. Dau, Plant Manager, and lead by Lezley K. Filzek, DTE Reliability Engineer. With all its coal and natural gas fired generators running the Belle River Power Plant has a maximum capacity of 1,664 Megawatt electric (MWe) power. The design content of the class was taught by Information Assets, Inc., (IAI) of Houston, TX.
Power plants powered by coal and other fuels have piping designed to answer their unique needs, such as high temperatures, high pressures and fuels. “The Belle River Power Plant has very large piping with very thick walls to handle the water and steam used by our boilers and turbines,” said Matt Lohmeier, an Engineer at DTE Energy. “Some pipe is lined with ceramic materials to tolerate abrasive coal flow.”

DTE Engineer Matthew T Lohmeier explain specialized coal transport pipe to piping class member Dave Brooks (Photo by Lezley Filzek, DTE Energy)

DTE Engineer Matthew T Lohmeier explain specialized coal transport pipe to piping class member Dave Brooks (Photo by Lezley Filzek, DTE Energy)

The new pipers followed DTE engineers throughout the plant, asking questions and marveling at the crushers, boilers, turbines, exchangers and pumps. “It’s one thing to study this in the classroom,” said one student. “It is quite another to see it in a working plant.”
Belle River Power Plant is a major coal- and natural gas-fired power plant owned by Detroit Edison, a subsidiary of DTE Energy. First, five oil-fueled internal combustion generators (named IC1, IC2, 3, 4, and 5) were built in 1981, with the total output 13.75 megawatt. Coal-fired unit 1 of the Belle River plant was completed in 1984, followed by a similar unit 2 in 1985. Each unit has a nameplate capacity of 697.5 MWe, however the coal-fired plant as a whole generates 1260 MWe all year around. In 1999, three natural-gas fired turbines (named 12-1, 12-2, and 13-1) were added, with the total name-plate capacity of 256 MWe. (For more information, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_River_Power_Plant)

DTE Engineer Sean A McCarthy Explain steam turbine driven generators to Macomb class (Photo by Lezley Filzek, DTE Energy)

DTE Engineer Sean A McCarthy Explain steam turbine driven generators to Macomb class (Photo by Lezley Filzek, DTE Energy)

The innovative training course to retrain automotive designers for piping work was developed by Talascend, a local placement company with a large staff of designers needing to find new areas to apply their skills. They partnered with Michigan Technical Education Center (M-TECSM), the corporate training arm of Macomb Community College. MTEC arranged the funding from the State of Michigan No Worker Left Behind Program.
For more information on the MCC Piping Training, contact: Ann Spaven, Administrator – Talascend Global Training Academy, 5700 Crooks Rd. Suite 420, Troy, MI 48098, Direct: (1) 248 537 1287, Fax: (1) 248 537 1353, Ann.Spaven@talascend.com, Web: www.talascend-gta.com.
For more information on DTE Energy, consult: http://www.dteenergy.com/

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16 Become PPD Certified After Completing 2nd Class for Michigan Designers

by admin on June 1, 2009

16 designers achieved PPD Level I Certification after completing training in another Michigan class of Piping Designers.  Class 2 of the Talascend/Macomb MTEC Process Piping and Plant Layout short course represented many improvements over the first class.  Bill Beazley, IAI President and Class Instructor, said, “These improvements were designed to take further advantage of the unique abilities and background of the mechanical designers typical of Michigan and the unique facilities offered by Macomb College and surrounding industries.”  This class brings to 33 the number of designers certified as Professional Piping Designers under this program.

Mechanical designers from automotive manufacturers and suppliers were exposed to multiple application constraints that help in piping: The requirement to work on tight schedules; demanding accountability; congested areas exposed to heat and vibration; design within a broad range CAD systems capable of solving problems of fit-up, routing, shielding, mounting, fabrication, etc. Classroom lectures and CAD labs were changed to leverage these existing skills.

As a result, the second class was able to spend more time on skills that integrate their industrial experience with their piping training. For example, class 2 spent an extra week of lab work on PDMS beyond a full week of PDMS instruction. This week included significant development of PDMS models plant equipment, which benefits directly from their prior experience with surface and constructed 3D geometry on other work assignments. Bill said, “this led to their creating much more detailed and extensive models in their lab than with similar classes. In short, they make great equipment modelers.”

The class also visited a working power plant, courtesy of DTE Energy. The Plant, Belle River Power Station, permitted students to see coal fired boilers in service and turnaround conditions, a rare opportunity. The level of questions from the class clearly demonstrate their knowledge of pipe, valves, fittings and equipment.

Finally, the efforts made to structure the class within Angel are paying big dividends. The class used more use of the videos, practice quizzes and web links to review and extend class lecture and labs. This increased the amount of equipment of equipment modeled and the level of comprehension about their function.

Bill Beazley summarized by saying, “this class continued the high level of competence we achieved in the first class. Not only are they proven pipe designers but they stand ready to bring into the field their long experience in other industries. They should all do well on their next piping assignment.”

Macomb College uses instructional videos recorded by William Beazley and Marketed by the Society of Piping Engineers and Designers (www.spedweb.com).

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IAI Trains Automotive Designers to be Piping Designers

March 11, 2009

IAI is completing it first class for Automotive Designers who wish to become Piping Designers. Funded by the State of Michigan the designers are retraining for other industries, including piping design. The first class is 17 industrial designers as piping designers. All will test for SPED PPD Level I.

“It is a little appreciated fact [...]

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Piping Design Training

February 16, 2009

William G. Beazley continues to offer piping design training to piping professionals.  Through video and classroom instruction, Dr. Beazley is able to prepare pipers for certification.  SPED certification is a well known respected certification in the piping design industry.  For more information on piping design training contact Dr. Beazley.

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KBI Piper Video Series to be Marketed by Piper Society

September 8, 2008

(Houston, TX 08 Sept 2008) SPED has announced they will market KBI’s new Piper Video Series designed to increase Piping Design skills to industry levels.  The SPED Piper Video Series topics are sold as two levels of training: 1.) Piper BootCamp which covers in-line pipe routing and 2.)  Process Plant Layout which covers placement of [...]

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4th Piping Engineers INSEP Class Passes SPED PPD Level I Exam, Enters New Phase of Training

August 1, 2008

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA (Aug. 1, 2008).  All 17 members of the 4th offering of the SHRDC INSEP Piping Engineering training class have passed the their first phase of training and the SPED Professional Piping Designer (PPD) Level I Certification Exam.  INSEP, or Industrial Skills Enhancement Program, organized by the Selangor Human Resource Development Center (SHRDC), [...]

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IAI Supports SPED and HCC in Training of 150 Piping Designers

July 4, 2008

Houston, TX (July 4, 2008)  – Information Assets, Inc., completed its support of training of 150 piping designers in the Gulf Coast area, organized by the Society of Piping Engineers and Designers and Houston Community College.  The training was funded by a $426,727 job-training grant from the Skills Development Fund that the Texas Workforce Commission [...]

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