2024 PSM ASSET MANAGERS CONFERENCE: Exhaust Systems
Advanced GTs / By Team CCJ
This is the second segment of CCJ’s three-part report on PSM’s 2024 Asset Management Conference, conducted at the Westin Beach Resort in Fort Lauderdale, Fla, January 29-February 1. The first segment was published earlier this year, the third installment will appear in CCJ later this year.
The focus here is fourfold:
- FlameSheet™ keeps getting better.
- Benefits of additive manufacturing (AM) in the production of R1 vanes.
- Technical presentations by industry partners on (1) generator field rewinds, (2) impacts of GT upgrades on heat-recovery steam generators (HRSGs), (3) exhaust-frame mods and improvements.
- Shop tour at the Jupiter center of excellence.
IPS: Exhaust frames need love too
It’s easy to forget that the non-flashy components of a modern combined-cycle plant can also affect performance. Case in point: the exhaust frame. David Clarida from Integrity Power Solutions (IPS) addressed fleet-level issues associated with exhaust frames in a preso entitled, “7F and EA Exhaust Frame R3 Modifications and Upgrades.” Note that R3 is shorthand for repair, refurbish, replace.
Operationally, the issues include exhaust-frame cooling-air loss, overloading of cooling-air blowers, load- and bearing-tunnel temperature increases, running two cooling-air blowers and losing redundancy, high-temperature exhaust-spread risk, potentially high wheel-space temperatures, repair costs increasing over time and still not making outage intervals, material degradation, and casing structural cracks.
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