Combustion Engineering

Combustion Engineering(C-E) was a multi-national American-based engineering firm that developed nuclear steam supply power systems in theUnited States.Originally headquartered in New York City, C-E moved its corporate offices toStamford, Connecticut,in 1973. C-E owned over three dozen other companies including Lummus Company,National Tank Companyand the Morgan Door Company. The company was acquired byAsea Brown Boveriin early 1990.The boiler and fossil fuel businesses were purchased byAlstomin 2000,and the nuclear business was purchased byWestinghouse Electric Companyalso in 2000.

History

Welders making boilers for a ship, Combustion Engineering Co, Chattanooga, Tenn. (1942)

Maintenance man at the Combustion Engineering Co working at the largest cold steel hydraulic press in the world, Chattanooga, Tenn. (1942)

Founding

Combustion Engineering was organized in 1912 through the merger of the Grieve Grate Company and the American Stoker Company, two well-known manufacturers of fuel burning equipment. The company was originally headquartered on11 Broadwayand at 43-5-7Broad Street (Manhattan),both inLower Manhattan. The city block was leased from the Alliance Realty Company in April 1920. In May of the same year the firm began construction of an eight-story office building on the same site.

During the 1920s, C-E's signature boiler equipment was the English designed Type-Estoker.C-E also offered several other types of underfeed stokers in addition to the Type-E. During the 1920s, all of C-E's stokers were fabricated in manufacturing plants along theMonongahela Riversouth ofPittsburgh.

In 1925 C-E entered thesteam boilerbusiness, beginning with a steam boiler installed at theFord Motor Company'sRiver Rouge PlantinDearborn, MI.C-E also acquired two boiler companies inChattanooga, TNto augment its manufacturing capabilities.

Merger with the Superheater Company

During theGreat Depression,C-E formed a partnership with the Superheater Company. The Locomotive Superheater Company was founded in 1910 to further the use ofsuperheated steaminlocomotives.The Superheater Company's primary manufacturing facility was located inEast Chicago, Indiana.

In December 1948 stockholders approved a merger between the Combustion Engineering Company and Superheater Company. Following consolidation the corporation was called Combustion Engineering-Superheater Inc.In September 1950 the firm announced plans to build a large high-pressure generating unit forVirginia Electric & Power CompanyinChester, Virginia.

In 1953, the name Superheater was eliminated and the company took the more familiar name - Combustion Engineering, Inc. At this time, C-E primarily designed and builtboiler assembliesforconventional power plants;those powered bycoalandoil.

In the mid-1950s, C-E also expanded its operations into oil and gas exploration, production, refining, andpetrochemicalswith the acquisition of the Lummus Company located inBloomfield, New Jersey.Lummus also supplied small industrial steam supply systems for oil field enhanced recovery.

C-E was one of the major suppliers ofboilersforUS Navysteam-poweredwarships, includingLiberty shipsduring World War II. Amongst many other warships, all of the 46Knox-classfrigatesbuilt during the 1960s and 1970s were equipped with a 1,200-pound-per-square-inch(8,300 kPa) C-E power plant.

C-E also was a leader in the development of large coal utility steam supply systems which were used worldwide. C-E pioneered the tangential firing process used in modern large pulverized coal utility boilers. C-E maintained a large coal burning test unit at the Windsor, Connecticut site which allowed the Power Systems Group to test changes to boiler air-flow and other critical boiler design factors.

Nuclear steam supply systems

C-E'snuclear poweractivity began in 1955 under Arthur Santry Jr. The history of the C-E Windsor, Connecticut campus dates to the early development of thenuclear submarine.From the mid-1950s through the early 1960s, Combustion Engineering, under federal government contract, produced nuclear fuel for the US Navy's "Nuclear Navy"nuclear submarines. Also located at the Windsor site was the prototype marinenuclear propulsiontraining facility known asS1C,which was designed and constructed by C-E adjacent to its main campus. The S1C prototype was operated by C-E for more than ten years as anR&Dand Naval training facility. After expiration of C-E's contract, the S1C contract was subsequently awarded toKnolls Atomic Power Laboratory(KAPL), who operated the unit until its decommissioning and dismantlement in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

In the 1960s, C-E began sellingnuclear powersteam supply systems. The first commercial nuclear steam supply system was sold toConsumers Power Companyof Michigan for thePalisades Nuclear Generating Station,which closed in 2022. C-E competed aggressively withGeneral ElectricandWestinghousein this domain.

In the late 1960s the company supplied nuclear reactor systems and fabricateduraniumfuel forelectric utilitycompanies. A joint venture was announced in April 1968, involving the Combustion Engineering Company,Houston Natural Gas,and Ranchers Exploration & Development Corporation. The three businesses combined to search for uranium on 250,000 acres (1,000 km²) inNew Mexico.

C-E was generally credited with a superior design, evidenced by the fact that themegawattyield of itsnuclear reactorswas typically about 10% higher than that of comparable Westinghouse plants. The basis for this increase in efficiency was a computer-based system called the Core Operating Limit Supervisory System (COLSS) for design, and the Core Protection Calculator (CPC) for real-time control room operation,which leveraged almost 300 in-coreneutron detectorsand a patentedalgorithmto allow higherpower densities.Combustion also fabricated a number of the Westinghouse reactor vessels and steam generators at its Chattanooga manufacturing facility under contracts with the Westinghouse company.

C-E maintained a sophisticated nuclear reactor operator training simulator at the Windsor facility for support for customers of its nuclear steam supply systems.

Structure and organization

In the 1960s, and continuing through 1988, C-E acquired a number of companies, many not directly related to the core utility steam supply business. As a result, the company structure evolved so that it had five and later six major business groups or divisions. C-E Power Systems comprised the original utility steam supply components, C-E Industrial Group, C-E Lummus & Engineering Services Group, C-E Refractories & Minerals Group, C-E Oil & Gas Group, and last C-E Instrumentation & Controls Group were formed to provide management focus as the company and its products base expanded. The Power Systems Division included the original major manufacturing facilities at Chattanooga, St. Louis, Monongahela, Birmingham; and in Canada, Brantford, Cornwall, and Upper Canada Manufacturing. A number of companies were acquired or developed and added to the division including, American Pole Structures, C-E Controls, the P.F. Avery Co., C-E Impel, C-E Maguire (Charles A. Maguire & Associates) and C-E Metals (primarily a specialty scrap metal operation in Chattanooga); and was basically divided into three major sub-groups: Fossil, Nuclear, and Services (which included field erection, aftermarket spare parts, and engineering services). The Industrial Group included C-E Industrial Boiler (part of the original base of CE in East Chicago, IN and Detroit & Saginaw, MI), C-E Bauer (Pulp & Paper Equipment), C-E Raymond (Crushing and Conveying Equipment), C-E Air Preheater (Ljungström® technology), C-E Tyler Screening (Industrial Wire Screens), C-E Ehrsham (Conveyors & Grain Elevators). C-E Enterprise Manufacturing, C-E Tyler Elevator, CERREY, and other industrial supply companies. The Oil & Gas Group included such companies as C-E Natco, C-E Grey Tool, Beaumont Well Works, C-E Vetco, OilField Engineering, C-E Houston Forging, etc. The Refractories & Minerals Group included C-E Minerals, C-E Refractories, C-E Cast Industrial Products, C-E Building Products (C-E Aluminum Building Products, C-E Morgan, C-E Stanley Artex), Georgia Kaolin, Pryor-Giggey, C-E Transport, C-E Glass, C-E Hordis Bros. Glass, etc. The Instrumentation & Controls group included C-E Taylor Instruments, C-E Resource Recovery Systems, C-E Process Analytics (acquired from Bendix), et al. Each group had a separate headquarters and support staff which coordinated each group's companies actions with the C-E Corporate support functions of Administration, Information Systems, Insurance, Treasury, Accounting, Audit, and Personnel.

C-E had a large presence in Canada, including fossil and nuclear steam supply manufacturing facilities. A number of the Industrial Group companies had manufacturing facilities there as well, primarily located in the province of Ontario. The Oil & Gas Group had operations in the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. C-E maintained offices as well as a number of manufacturing sites on a worldwide basis, including the UK, Ireland, Austria, Germany, Italy, South Africa, Belgium, Mexico and France. C-E's technology on a wide range of products was licensed worldwide.

Leadership and management

For much of the existence of the company, the Santry family controlled the management of C-E. Joseph Santry was President of the company until 1963. Arthur Santry, Jr., Joseph's nephew, was named president in 1963 and Chairman of the C-E Board of Directors in 1982 and held both titles until he resigned his post as president in 1984. He remained as chairman until 1988. Charles Hugel was named President of C-E in 1984 and remained in that position until 1988 when he succeeded Mr. Santry as chairman of the board. George Kimmel was named president and Chief Operating Officer in 1988 and remained in that position until the sale of the company to ABB in 1990.

Ownership changes

In 1990 C-E became a wholly owned subsidiary ofABB(Asea Brown Boveri), a Swiss-Swedishmultinationalconglomeratebased inZürichand one of the largestelectrical engineeringcompanies in the world.

C-E's financial debt and lingeringasbestosliability brought ABB to the brink of bankruptcy in the early 2000s. ABB was able to resolveasbestosclaims filed against Combustion Engineering and Lummus Global in 2006 with a billion-plus dollar settlement agreement.

ABB andAlstommerged their power groups in 1999 creating a 50/50joint venture,ABB-Alstom Power. In 2000, Alstom bought out ABB.

In 2001, the nuclear steam supply system vendor portion of the company, operating as Combustion Engineering, was bought by Westinghouse Electric Co., a then subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels.

On November 2, 2015GE Powerannounced it had completed the acquisition of Alstom's power and grid businesses.

See also

• Babcock & Wilcox
• SL-1(Idaho reactor operated by CE until 1961)

External links

• Official website