Combustion Engineering

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Combustion Engineering (C-E) was a leading firm in the development of power systems in the United States in the late 20th century. The firm was purchased by Asea Brown Boveri in the early 1990s. Most of it is now owned by ALSTOM, however the nuclear business is owned by Westinghouse Electric Company.

Combustion Engineering (C-E) designed and built boilers for conventional power plants - those powered by coal and oil. In the 1960s, C-E began selling nuclear power steam supply systems. The first commercial nuclear steam supply system was sold to Consumers Power Company of Michigan for the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, which is still in operation. C-E competed aggressively with General Electric and Westinghouse in this domain. C-E was generally credited with a superior design, evidenced by the fact that the megawatt yield of its nuclear reactors was 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), which leveraged almost 300 in-core neutron detectors and a patented algorithm to allow higher power densities.

C-E was one of the major suppliers of boilers for US Navy steam-powered warships. Among many other warships, all of the 46 Knox class frigates built during the 1960s and 1970s were equipped with a 1200 PSI C-E power plant.

C-E was an innovative American engineering firm with approximately 10,000 employees in about a dozen states. Headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, C-E owned over two dozen other companies including National Tank Company and Anderson Windows. It had a major boiler manufacturing facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Former workers have gone on to hold leadership positions in major engineering firms and governments around the world.