Innovative Gas Turbine Performance Diagnostics And Hot Parts Life Assessment Techniques.

Abstract

Traditional service and maintenance contracts are evolving to new form of relationship between providers and operators requiring deep changes in service offerings, with strong emphasis on high-tech contents. In gas turbine applications, remote monitoring associated with advanced condition and performance diagnostics and hot parts remnant life assessment are requirements being increasingly set by operators as a must for global, long-term service contracts. The work described herein is aimed at providing effective answers to these requirements through development of advanced tools for accurate gas-path analysis with custom tuning for each individual machine based on monitored data. Generated gas-path information is used to diagnose internal component degradation and retune the control system accordingly, to reduce deterioration effects on performance and consequent needs for preventive or unscheduled maintenance. Hot part metal temperatures and stresses are continuously evaluated from gas-path information and used to both assess part damage evolution related to actual operation and to predict remnant life as a function of expected operating requirements.