Replacement of valves in the gate valve house of the Schwammenauel dam and hydropower station
May 16, 2011
The Rur dam with the Schwammenauel hydropower station is located in the Nordeifel mountains near the city of Heimbach. With its storage volume of 203 million m³ it is one of Germany's largest dams. After more than 65 years of service, the valves at the bottom outlet had to be replaced. The old plunger valves were replaced by hollow jet valves with a much higher capacity.
By way of public invitation to tender, Heinrich Scheven Anlagen- und Leitungsbau GmbH in Erkrath was commissioned to build the hydraulic steelworks and to supply the new valves including actuators. Heinrich Scheven in turn commissioned VAG Armaturen GmbH in October 2004 to manufacture and supply the valves and pipe adapters.
- The DIN 19700 standard, applicable since June 2004, had to be complied with. This standard requires bottom outlets to have an increased flow capacity of 50 m³ / second for each outlet.
- The constructional conditions, which could be changed only to a limited extent, made the difficult installation of the hollow jet valves weighing up to 23 tons even more difficult.
The new hydraulic steelworks equipment consists of two DN 2000 bottom outlets having a DN 2000 pipe adapter serving as a transition pipe adapter from the concrete encased bottom outlet pipes with non-standardised flanges to standardised DIN flanges, a VAG EKN DN 2000 butterfly valve with brake and lift cylinder to prevent pipe bursts, a DN 2000/18000 pipe adapter as a reducer to the nominal width of the hollow jet valves, a DN 1800 dismantling joint to compensate the difference between the face-to-face dimensions, a DN 1800 elbow segment and a VAG DN 1800 hollow jet valve with a downstream venting set having a diameter of 3200 mm and a guide pipe with a diameter of 3600 mm. In the adjacent outdoor pipeline with a diameter of DN 2300 leading to the Schwammenauel hydropower station, a VAG EKN DN 2300 butterfly valve with brake and lift cylinder was installed to prevent pipe bursts. It was combined with a DN 2300 dismantling joint to compensate differences in face-to-face lengths. As a bypass valve for filling the DN 2300 power station pipeline, a VAG RIKO DN 250 plunger valve with downstream venting set was installed (picture 2). The DN 900 air valve dating back to the origins of the dam and made by Bopp & Reuther (now VAG Armaturen) still functioned perfectly so that its replacement was not necessary, which in turn also helped to reduce costs (picture 3).
WVER as the owner is convinced to have made the right decision in choosing VAG valves in order to ensure the safe operation of its dam for a long time to come.
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Contact
Peter Oppinger (VAG Armaturen GmbH, Germany)
68305 Mannheim
Phone:
0049 - 621/ 749-2106
Fax:
0049 - 621/ 749-292106