Report on Investigation into the Failure of Two 100-MW. Turbo-generators

It has often been said of engineering that ‘Progress is made by solving the problems resulting from the making of progress’.

This paper describes the investigations made following the failure of two generators each of 100 MW. capacity installed in the Richard L. Hearn Generating Station at Toronto of The Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario. The author details some general considerations affecting the design of alternator rotors, the selection of materials used, past troubles which had to be avoided, reasons for certain features incorporated in the original design and modified as the result of the failures, and safeguards introduced into current practice to avoid the possibility of a repetition of the failures.