12 - Steam turbine monitoring technology, validation, and verification tests for power plants

Abstract

Testing and monitoring steam turbines in power plants is critical to achieving and maintaining the turbine’s intended function of providing safe, reliable, and economic power production for the end-user. Testing of steam turbines and their associated components provides benefits to the end-user, as well as to the original equipment manufacturer. For the end-user of a steam turbine, testing and monitoring provides necessary information so as to readily determine the overall economics of power production with respect to fuel usage, maintainability, operation flexibility, and overall viability of their investment. In today’s climate, where it is becoming increasingly necessary to minimize CO2 emissions and other pollutants produced in power plants, it is imperative to achieve optimum performance in addition to meeting increased demands for flexible operation. Power plant monitoring that includes the steam turbine thermal island is vitally important to ensuring reliability, providing protection to key turbine components, and providing key feedback to achieve the desired operational flexibility. Steam turbine monitoring is also used to track steam turbine performance (short and long term) and is also needed to troubleshoot issues that may develop related to unit performance, operability, and overall functionality of the unit. Steam turbine monitoring is also being expanded to make life assessments of critical rotor components. Testing beyond the steam turbine proper is also common and can include testing of other balance of plant components such as feedwater heaters in a regenerative fossil-fired unit or testing of heat recovery steam generators in a combined cycle plant.