Westfaila purifiers alarm

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Hisham30
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Westfaila purifiers alarm

Post by Hisham30 »

Good day guys

I used to work in Mitsubishi and alfa laval purifiers but in this contract i have westfaila purifiers foe auxiliary engine problem.

I monitoring when start normal operation and after 20 mins the feed water open ( i can see the pressure from the panel and i guess the feed water open to close the open bowl during operation, i am right? Please let me know if it is not correct.
How the purifier can detect that there is no water seal?

It giving alarm number 40 (no water seal) and i have no idea what need to do.

Jobs have been done..

Changed all O rings for the bowl except selling ring (have one set spare only).
Checked the rpm and look correct.
Checked oil pressure and i adjusted 1.5 bar.
Checked the water pressure and adjusted 3.0 bar.
Checked the pulse and it ia 8 second.

Thank you and i appreciate your help as i am now in real problem 🙂
popeye62
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Re: Westfaila purifiers alarm

Post by popeye62 »

Hello Hisham30, sorry to hear about your troubles with the Westfalia OS..? purifying..? clarifying..? oil..? fuel..? bilge water..? If you have experience of Alfa Laval and Mitsui then you have the answers to fix this problem. Those problems that drive us mental exist in all centrifugal separators and are guaranteed to pop up at some point. Have you read the manuals for the machine, the control set-up and the parameters? You will have noticed that Westfalia use different names for the same parts as AL e.g. AL sliding bowl bottom, W/F sliding piston and AL operating slide, W/F annular piston and closing chamber bottom. There are differences but the principles are the same, the annular piston and the closing chamber bottom in the W/F replace the operating slide and springs in the AL.
Regarding your message, we need some clarification:
'After 20 mins feed water open' - What do you mean by feed water? Opening water, closing water, sealing water, displacing water or conditioning water? There are two water systems; operating water and filling/displacement water. They may come from the same source but the former doesn't enter the bowl while the latter does. Is it 20 minutes after start or after discharge?
Is your machine Unitrol or Varizone? i.e. Does it have a gravity disc/dam ring or a water sensor?
'I can see pressure from the panel' - Which panel? a gauge or the control panel (C7?)
'I guess the feed water open to close the open bowl during operation, am I right' - I don't know it depends what you mean by feed water, however, if you mean a pressure of 3b then no, you are not right. Water pressure (from a main) does not close or keep the bowl closed it is the pressure on the water caused by the centrifugal force (centripetal acceleration). The water under the sliding bowl bottom is hydraulically locking the bowl in the up (closed) position. You can't close the bowl when it is not spinning and this is why the correct speed is important. There are leaks so every few minutes there is a short 'pulse' of closing water to replace any that has leaked out.
'How can the purifier detect that there is no water seal?' - It either senses a back pressure when the bowl is full or it detects the consequences of not having a water seal but first we need to determine what you mean by a water seal. If the machine is operating as a purifier and not a clarifier then then there will be water in the bowl, in a machine with a gravity disc/dam ring the water is a seal containing the oil within the disc stack, if it is a unitrol then the water in the bowl is used to condition the sludge at the bowl periphery making it easier to discharge.
Giving alarm #40, I have no idea what to do - The manual tells you what to check:
*******No Water Seal during Timer 35 Separation - Stop. Alarm#40 press Enter
Possible causes:
Clean oil discharge pressure too high, valve V7 closed too far - Check clean oil discharge pressure.
Filling water valve V2 does not open - Check function V2
Filling water quantity too low, e.g. other consumers at same time - Check filling water quantity
Filling valve V2 or filters dirty - Check valve V2 and filters
Water pressure for hydraulics too high or T06 too long - Check water pressure with open valve and T06
Shift of separating zone, product temperature too low - Check temperature of setting of TAL
Wrong sensing centripetal pump installed - Check parts in accordance with operating instructions
Pressure sensor PT2 bridged or set to 0 - Check setting P2*********
Have you checked these?
When asking for help please provide details which will help us to help you and that begins with the make and model of your machine and what its purpose is. If it is an engine also give the total hours.
Good luck, I know what a pain they can be.
Hisham30
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Re: Westfaila purifiers alarm

Post by Hisham30 »

Thank you for your answer
It is ose 6 for AE puri ans total running houra is 600.
There is gravity disk and it works as purifier.

Basically it give no water seal alarm and i checked all the possible causes except pt2 (i don't see any settings for this sensor).
After 20 mins of the operation i monitor sms increase to 2.5 bar and then alarm no water seal.
popeye62
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Re: Westfaila purifiers alarm

Post by popeye62 »

Hello Hisham, thanks for the info. How old is the vessel?
Just so we are clear; the sms 'feed' comes up through a hole in the separating disc, through the bowl cover and into the upper centripetal pump, (the sensing liquid pump) it is then pumped through the sensing line back into the main feed inlet via the recirculation valve. The purpose of this is so the pressure can be monitored by a pressure switch. The pressure in the sensing line must be above the low limit of the switch. If the hole in the separating disc gets blocked with sludge the pressure in the sensing line falls and the switch activates a total discharge.
I can't see how the pressure in the sensing line would increase unless the recirculation valve is closing or the pressure in the main clean oil outlet has increased or the throughput has increased at the inlet (which would also show an increased back pressure at the clean oil outlet). If the back pressure increases too much it could blow out the water seal but I don't know why the bp would increase after 20 minutes.
In the 20 minutes of separation are all the pressures steady? What is the pressure in the sms sensing line?
In your first message you say you didn't change the sealing ring. It is possible that the seal is leaking water over 20 minutes. To check this just add some sealing/displacement water (not opening/closing water) manually before 20 minutes and see if the alarm comes. You also said that after 20 minutes the 'feed water valve open', which valve and does it stay open?
John
Hisham30
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Re: Westfaila purifiers alarm

Post by Hisham30 »

Hello sir
Thank you for the valuable information.
The vessel is new just 6 months.
I am not sure if i understand the v5 and v6 well or not and yes i read the manual.
From the manual there is sample come from inside the bowl to the wms and if sensing the water will open the discharged valve (to sludge tk) and the other selonid will close.
If no more oil the discharged valve will close and the circulation valve will open to start sensing the feed oil.
Is these two valve are V5 and V6?
Is the one which sensing sms is different than this two valves.

I monitoring during the operation.
Sms start zero and then increase to 2.5 and in this time it give alarm no water seal.
It is also happen will the other purifer for ME but when the sms increase i find V6 open for one second and then pressure in sms become zero and this is the normal operation sms always zero and no alarm.
popeye62
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Re: Westfaila purifiers alarm

Post by popeye62 »

Hello Hisham, can you provide the complete model number? Can you provide any photos?
The sms and wms sample is the same. Is there a manifold on top of the separator(sensor block)? The sample is pumped into the manifold, there are two ways out through two solenoid valves (are these V5 and V6? in my manual for OSE 40 they are 7 and 8) Also fitted on this manifold are a pressure switch and a conductivity (water) sensor (CS). One of these valves recirculates the sample back into the main feed and is open (in the manual it says 'intermittently' and there is a 'throttle' probably an orifice, see if these are the same with the ME) , the other valve opens to the sludge tank. The sms operates as previously described (sample pressure monitored, if it falls, ejection) the wms monitors the sample with the CS and if water is detected the other valve opens and dumps the sample to the sludge tank until the water content is reduced to below the CS trigger value, which is what you say above except instead of 'no more oil' it is 'no more water'.
I am not sure what V6 is, timer T06 is the closing water pulse. On the ME when the valve opens for one second, check the settings for T06, is it one second or less? Does the one second pulse come every 600 seconds? that seems to be the standard setting. Does the same valve open on the AE for one second? The sms is not active until it has reached the 'minimum separating time 10 minutes' T21, what is your timer set to? The system 'looks' for a pressure rise in the sms within the time set on T11 after start-up or a discharge, if it doesn't 'see' it the feed valve is closed but the alarm is 'Pressure switch low' not no water seal. There are no sms or wms alarms.
Has the machine ever worked properly, being only six months old? Are the 'screws out of the separating disc' the holes may be blanked with screws for FO operation.
Is the supply of oil to the machine steady, pressure and throughput, is the suction filter blocked (going back to basics)?
Check the operation of the solenoid valves with a tester if they don't have an LED (if you don't have a tester just use a small screwdriver to detect for magnetism in the solenoid coil)
Does the control panel have a button 'Check' with a picture of a tap? Use this to check the sms and the wms
Check the pressure switch delay timer (T27) the manual says 10 seconds?
Have you tried initiating a discharge manually after 15 minutes, does everything work?
Have you tried turning the sms and the wms off? Will the machine run to the full separation time (1 or 2 hours) and discharge? If it does I would leave it off and change the separation time to 30 minutes (T20), reduce the throughput to 50% capacity and adjust the back pressure to 2.0b and observe while we figure out the problem with the monitoring. Ensure the sludge tank alarm is working, always.
To check the machine itself if necessary run it manually but you need to find a way of operating the solenoid valves and just follow the program: when up to speed close the bowl, fill it with water, run the feed pump and open the oil feed valve (the 3-way valve), every 600 seconds give it a pulse of closing water, after some time close the feed valve, add water to displace the contents and then open the bowl. Does it work as it should?
The truth is out there, Hisham. Good luck
John
Hisham30
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Re: Westfaila purifiers alarm

Post by Hisham30 »

Hello
I really appreciate your help and the information . thank you.

T06 = 0.08 S and every 600 S
T21 min sepration = 0 S
T11 = 30 S
T27= 0 S
T20= 2600 S
regards to seprating disc hole i cleaned the bowl and changed o ring 3 times to yet (i monitored first day no alarms and in the next day alarm come every 20 min) and it is happened in each time.
I want to know if SMS show 2.5 bar does it mean the bowl leaking? is the normal operation is SMS =0?
is V6 is the discharge valve to sludge tk> ( i attached pics).

It is happened in the other purifer ME LO purifier the SMS increased to 2.5 but i found V6 opened for 1 second and after the pressure became zero ( i do not know which setting is responsible to open V6 for 1 second .

thank you
hisham
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Hisham30
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Re: Westfaila purifiers alarm

Post by Hisham30 »

setting of DG purif
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popeye62
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Re: Westfaila purifiers alarm

Post by popeye62 »

Hello Hisham, I have responded to your message
John
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