Extended Monitoring Strategies for Lifetime Optimization of Power Plant Components
(Room Garuda 10B, 1st Floor)
18 Sep 18
4:00 PM
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5:30 PM
Tracks:
TRACK C - Optimizing Plant Operation
Monitoring boiler and high temperature piping components is of crucial importance. Newer plants utilize significantly high steam parameters resulting in lower design margins. At the same time higher flexibility in power plant operation is required. Safe and effective operation of boiler components and high-temperature piping systems demand technically optimized design and realistic projections of plant lifetime by means of structural analysis, fluid dynamics, damage analysis / assessment and lifetime monitoring. Consequently, lifetime monitoring provisions are essential for boiler and piping components subjected to severe thermal loading conditions. The need for this kind of monitoring arises from the limited lifetime of these components. The factors limiting a components’ life are creep damage and low cycle fatigue. Effects of creep and fatigue can be quantified by calculation of the degree of exhaustion and many common monitoring tools are limited to this task. Therefore, the objective of extended monitoring systems is the validation of the long-term behaviour of the boiler components and piping systems and optimization of the plant operation. For this purpose, an extended monitoring strategy is developed for monitoring creep and fatigue, as well as the functionality of the hanger system. This is an important precondition for maintaining the operation reliability, allowing early reactions to eliminate malfunctions and thus contribute to an optimization of the lifetime of the plant. Over 25 years of experience with this extended monitoring system in different power stations show that the condition of the monitored plant components can be evaluated successfully with additional measurements and consistent analysis of operational data. The benefits range from sustainable minimization of operating and maintenance costs through optimized operations at low maintenance effort, and the possibility of extending the operating time beyond the design time. Examples from several power plants currently in operation will be presented.