NOB Norfolk, VA –
Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center’s (MARMC) Gas Turbine flyaway team joined members of South East Regional Maintenance Center (SERMC) in reinstalling four LM2500 Gas Turbine Main Engines on USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) at Huntington Ingles Industries (HII) in Pascagoula, Mississippi, Oct. 21–Nov. 15.
SERMC and MARMC worked together to remove four LM2500 engines from the Fitzgerald back in April where they developed processes while working together that made the installation process go that much smoother.
“Initially this repair evolution was scheduled to take 60 days,” said MARMC Gas Turbine Systems Mechanical (GSM) First Class Keith Karlstromer. “Through our collaboration with SERMC, and the hard work done by all parties involved, we were able to get all the engines installed in under 30 days.” SERMC served as the lead on the repair, but MARMC worked alongside them and was there to help assist in every way possible.
“MARMC assisted in every part of the repair from helping with creating the repair packages to verifying tag-out with the shipyard,” said Karlstromer. “We also helped to prepare the new engines, which were still in their canisters before they were rigged into position.”
Once the commands’ gas turbine teams had the new engines rigged into their modules, the next phase was to safe guard them while the ship awaits completion of the remainder of her maintenance period. “Since the engines wouldn’t be started for over a year they would need to be placed in layup,” said Karlstromer. “You contain the module and setup a dehumidifier to lessen the moisture. This way you reduce or eliminate corrosion.”
For MARMC’s part, eight GSMs were sent down to Mississippi to partner with SERMC on the repairs.
“This was a great learning experience for my entire group. Typically, we do most of these repairs by ourselves, so working with SERMC we learned some things from them and we hope they learned from us as well,” said Karlstormer.