Online
Spring, 2013
KATO™ Generators Power Hebron Project
Six KATO™ generators will be used
to power fire fighting water pumps on the
“Hebron Project,” an offshore platform to
be located near Newfoundland, Canada.
While four of the generators provide
the normal operating power for the pumps,
two will be used as “essential power,” and
provide backup power to critical platform
equipment, including the pumps. In addition, another KATO™ generator will supply emergency power for the platform.
Located 30 meters below the surface
of the water, the fire water pumps are a
safety requirement for the platform. The
engine-generator set is sending power
down 500 feet of cabling.
The six pump generators are 2450
kW, 4160 V. The standby unit is 2450 kW
600 V. All were sized for specific motor
starting characteristics, are totally enclosed air-to-air cooled and were manufactured to the stringent requirements of API
546 standard.
Hebron is an oil field in the North
Atlantic located 217 miles off the east
coast of Canada’s Newfoundland in the
Jeanne d’Arc Basin. The water depth there
The field
iis about
b t 300 ffeet.
t Th
ld was firstt disdi
covered in 1980. There are three other oil
fields with
production
facilities
within a 30mile radius.
The
KATO™
generators
were packaged in Norway to MTU
A Hebron TEAAC generaengines
tor under construcƟon
by Eureka
Pumps. The portion of the oil platform
where the generators are located is being
constructed by Hyundai Heavy Industries
in South Korea.
The platform is a gravity-based
structure with a reinforced concrete base
designed to withstand sea ice, icebergs and
- ConƟnued on Page 2
Offshore platform 217 miles off
of the coast of Newfoundland
Power for fire water pumps and
emergency platform power
Four 2450 kW, 4160 V generators and one 2450 kW, 600 V
generator, all with TEAAC
enclosures
Generators packaged by
Eureka Pumps of Norway to
MTU engines
A drawing of the Hebron topside
(Image courtesy of Hebron)
The mission of the Kato
Current Online is to
enhance communication
between us and you,
our customer. Please
forward comments to
Richard Rohlfing,
507-345-2719; richard.
[email protected];
Kato Engineering, PO
Box 8447, Mankato, MN
56002. All content is
copyright 2013 © Kato
Engineering.
Kato Generators on USS America (LHA-6)
USS America (LHA-6), the first of
two America-class amphibious assault
ships for the U.S. Navy, was christened
last October and will be delivered in 2013.
It contains six Kato Engineering generators used for auxiliary power.
The generators are totally enclosed
water-to-air-cooled (TEWAC), 4000 kW
designs. Kato’s customer is Fairbanks
Morse of Beloit, Wisconsin, who packaged the generators with its diesel engines
The ship is being constructed in Pascagoula, Mississippi by Ingalls Shipbuilding
(formerly Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding).
Sometimes referred to as a mini
aircraft carrier, the role of the amphibious
assault ship is different from a standard
aircraft carrier. Rather than supporting
strike aircraft, its aviation facilities have
the main role of hosting aircraft that supports forces ashore.
However, amphibs can also embark
fighters capable of vertical or short-runway takeoffs and landings. Most of these
ships can also carry or support landing
craft, such as air-cushioned landing craft
(hovercraft) or landing craft utility boats
(LCUs).
Amphibs typically have a well deck,
a large compartment that can be flooded
partway with water, with a door in the
stern of the ship that can be lowered to
let smaller vessels in and out. That makes
for easy loading landing craft that carry
Marines and their heavy gear ashore.
However, America is the first amphibious
USS America (LHA-6) was launched last June and christened October 20 (Image courtesy of the US Navy).
assault ship that has no well deck. Instead,
she has increased hangar capacity and is
designed to provide sea-based air support
to marine landing forces.
America’s mission is to act as the flagship of an expeditionary strike group or
amphibious ready group, carrying part of
a Marine unit into battle and putting them
ashore with helicopters and V-22 Osprey
tilt-rotor aircraft. Supporting aircraft
include helicopter gunships and F-35B
Lightning II aircraft, which are capable of
short takeoffs and vertical landings.
The ship’s keel was laid in July 2009.
It is 844-feet (257-m) long and has a
Gens
Used for Safety System
Continued from page x
- ConƟnued from Page 1
meteorological and oceanographic conditions. The base,
which has a height of about 400 feet and a diameter of
425 feet, will store 1.3 million barrels of oil.
The base will support an integrated topsides deck
some 130-feet tall. The structure includes a living quarters and facilities to perform drilling and production. The
platform will be capable of producing 150,000 barrels of
oil per day.
First oil is expected to be extracted sometime in
2017.
ExxonMobil Canada Properties is the operator of
the Hebron Project. The co-ventures also include Statoil
Canada and Nalcor Energy - Oil and Gas.
2
4
106-foot (32-m) beam. It has a speed rating of 20+ knots (37 km/h; 23 mph) and
can carry 65 officers, 994 enlisted 1,687
Marines (plus 184 surge). Naval base San
Diego will be America’s home port.
America’s design is based on the USS
Makin Island (LHD-8). Kato Engineering
supplied generators to that class ship as
well, and the generators are identical to
those on the America class.
Kato is currently building generators
for the LHA-7 Tripoli. Subsequent LHAs
will likely revert to the more traditional
well-deck design.
A Brief History of Alternating Current
Kato Engineering produced its first
improvement in both service and econoalternating current (AC) generators in the
my, and Edison supposedly offered him
1930s, but AC was developed over a cena healthy reward if accomplished. After
tury earlier. The path from AC discovery
months of work, Tesla fulfilled the task
to practical use is an interesting one.
and inquired about payment. Edison only
An early form of AC electrical generwanted to give him a relatively modest inator was constructed in 1832
crease in salary.
by Hippolyte Pixii. Pixii a
Tesla refused the
scientific instrument maker
offer and immein Paris, was guided by the
diately resigned,
experiments of Englishman
vowing to start a
Michael Faraday, who a year
company of his
earlier discovered electroown.
magnetic induction, the
In 1885 Tesproduction of voltage when
la set out to raise
a conductor is moved across
capital on his
a magnetic field.
own for Tesla
Pixii’s device was a
Electric Light &
spinning magnet turned
Manufacturing
by a hand crank, where
company, but
the north and south poles
was later fired
passed over a coil with an
when investors
iron core. Through inducdid not agree
tion, the machine generated
to his proposal
a current pulse each time a
to develop an
Nikola Tesla (Wikipedia image)
pole passed over the coil.
AC transmisPixii found that the direction of the cursion system and motors. Later he founded
rent went one way with the north pole and
the Tesla Electric Company and built an
the opposite direction with the south pole.
AC induction motor. In 1888, he demonAC, however, wouldn’t be largely used
strated the AC current system and motor
until about 60 years later, thanks largely
to industrialist George Westinghouse.
to the efforts of Nikola Tesla.
Westinghouse purchased some of Tesla’s
Tesla, a gifted Serbian engineer, came patents and hired Tesla to develop an AC
to the US in 1884 to meet Thomas Edison, generator system.
the inventor of the light bulb. Edison was
Edison’s DC was the first available
so impressed with Tesla that he hired him
and was more efficiently generated, easily
on the spot, and for a while, the two engimetered, and many cities had adopted DC
neers worked for lighting streets and running electric
together,
trolleys and other equipment. But voltage
designing
drop due to the resistance of DC system
generators
conductors was so high that generating
and other
plants had to be located within a mile or
DC devices
so of the load. Also, higher voltages could
for Edison’s
not easily be used with DC because there
new electric
was no efficient low-cost technology that
company.
would allow reduction of a high transmisTesla
sion voltage to a low utilization voltage.
claimed that
This meant that separate electrical lines
he could
had to be installed to supply power to
redesign
appliances that used different voltages, for
Edison’s
example, lighting and electric motors
inefficient
Alternating current could be transmitmotor
and
ted
over
long distances at high voltages,
Pixii’s 1832 device that progenerators,
using
lower
current, and thus having
duced alternaƟng current
making
an
energy
loss
and
greater transmission ef(Wikipedia image)
3
ficiency, and then conveniently stepped
down to low voltages for use in homes
and factories.
Starting with the town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Westinghouse
Electric began installing its own AC
generators around the country, focusing
mostly on the less populated areas that
Edison’s system could not reach. But
Westinghouse was also making headway
in cities like New Orleans, selling electricity at a loss in order to cut into Edison’s market share. By 1887, after only
a year in the business, Westinghouse had
already more than half as many generating stations as Edison.
Edison immediately recognized AC’s
threat to his patents and fought back with
propaganda. So, in what is called the
“Battle of the Currents,” Edison carried
out a campaign to discourage the use of
alternating current by trying to show it
was too dangerous.
He placed billboard and newspaper
advertisements warning of the dangers
of alternating current, and he and Westinghouse sparred in print. An engineer on
Edison’s payroll, using AC, staged public
electrocutions of animals. Westinghouse’s
- ConƟnued on Page 4
In the late 1920s, Kato Engineering made
DC-AC converters for AC radios.
Deep Space Antennas Rely on Kato MGs
The Deep Space Network (DSN),
managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL), is a worldwide system
of communication complexes that serve as
portals for spacecraft that explore our solar
system, examine the Milky Way galaxy
and beyond, and even keep a watchful eye
on our own planet.
Since the mid 1960s, Kato Engineering motor-generator sets have been
supplying reliable high-frequency power
for the antennas’ transmitters at the DSN’s
three facilities, which are located strategically around the globe.
Founded in the 1930s as a division
of the California Institute of Technology,
JPL designed and built rockets for the U.S.
Army before being transferred to NASA
when the space agency was created in
1958.
That same year, JPL designed, built
and flew the United States’ first satellite,
Explorer 1. JPL engineers deployed portable radio station stations in Nigeria, Singapore and California to receive signals
from, and plot the orbit of, the satellite.
Within a few years, the Deep Space
Network was established, with permanent
complexes at Goldstone in California’s
Mojave Desert, in Spain and in Australia.
The three locations are approximately
120 degrees apart in longitude, which
enables continuous observation and suitable overlap for transferring the spacecraft
radio link from one complex to the next.
Kato motor-generators provide high frequency power for JPL’s deep space antennas.
(Image courtesy of JPL)
Each complex is situated in semi-mountainous, bowl-shaped terrain to shield
against radio frequency interference.
Over the years the DSN has tracked
and communicated with history-making
spacecraft including JPL’s Mariner missions to Mars, Venus and Mercury; the
Viking 1 and 2 missions to Mars; Voyager
1 and 2 to the outer planets Jupiter, Saturn,
Neptune and Pluto; Galileo to Jupiter;
Cassini to Saturn; and the Mars Pathfinder,
Mars Exploration Rover and Mars Science
Laboratory missions.
Today the DSN supports about two
dozen planetary exploration, astrophysics and Earth science missions managed
by JPL and other facilities in the United
States and abroad.
Battle of the Currents Pits AC Against DC
- ConƟnued from Page 3
cause was set back when an electrician
was electrocuted while working on the
Great Barrington generators.
This fierce propaganda war would
soon come to an end, however. In 1893,
an international commission, led by the
Englishman William Thompson (Lord
Kelvin) and backed by entrepreneurs such
as J. P. Morgan, Lord Rothschild, and
John Jacob Astor IV, requested proposals
to harness Niagara Falls for generating
electricity.
The Colombian Exposition was soon
to be held in Chicago, and the search was
on for some method of powering the fair’s
180,000 incandescent lamps. On one
side was Edison with his large, obtrusive DC system. On the other were Tesla
and Westinghouse, with the new, more
manageable AC system. Edison asked for
$1.8 million to power the all-electric fair.
A demonstration of the setup revealed a
web of copper wire. Westinghouse offered
to power the fair at $399,000 and without
the large transmission network, an easy
accomplishment for AC. AC won that
battle, but had not yet won the war.
Both systems set up a display at the
exposition. At the fair, Tesla unleashed the
beauty and power of AC through an amazing spectacle of man-made lightning. To
demonstrate safety of this system, he used
himself as a conductor to light an incan4
descent tube and walked away unharmed.
AC was the power of the future.
Thompson was convinced by Tesla’s
demonstration of three-phase alternating
current power transmission and agreed
to use Tesla’s system. When completed,
this plant was able to transport electricity
more than 200 miles. AC was here to stay.
Kato Engineering’s first products
were batteries that made DC radios more
reliable, but in the late 20s the company
made DC to AC converters so areas that
still had DC, could use the higher sound
quality AC radios. Our first AC generator,
a 350-Watt machine, was available in the
early 1930s.