Thermodynamic Analysis

Turbine owners seek to simultaneously improve cycle thermal efficiency, decrease fuel costs and to increasing power output. Scheduling the ideal time to conduct an overhaul to improve performance and meet these objectives is an important part of the plant management process. MD&A assists owner to meet these goals by analyzing your cycle's efficiency and making recommendations for correcting thermal problems.

The focus of our analysis is to determine the thermodynamic condition of your steam turbine and the other components in the steam cycle. The analysis helps to isolate problems and to determine what these problems may be. Turbine test data or data collected from station instrumentation is often used to help in this isolation.

Solid particle erosion, foreign object damage, water induction, internal leakage, deposits, seal rubbing, and many other types of damage have distinctive thermodynamic characteristics that become apparent with proper data analysis. Routine monitoring of key pressures, temperatures, flows and output allows turbine owners to choose the right time to perform maintenance on the turbine cycle or to alter the operation of the cycle. MD&A provides trending of casing efficiencies, corrected heat rate and power output, key pressure patterns, and other diagnostic information to pinpoint problem areas and to provide a basis for maintenance decisions.

As an owner, you may also consider upgrades and modifications to the turbine cycle to improve performance. You would like to know what options are available to improve performance; what impact will they will have on performance; and once installed, did you get the desired performance outcome? Examples of cycle modifications and upgrades include; altering the amount or location of process steam, changing throttle pressure or temperature, increasing capacity by increasing HP stage areas, replacing last stage blades, and changing the capacity of balance-of-plant equipment.

MD&A's thermodynamic analyses help turbine owners with each step of the process. A heat balance program is used to conduct "what if" scenarios on the turbine cycle. The changes to the entire cycle are quantified when a modification is made to a portion of the cycle. Collection and reduction of guarantee test data allows MD&A to conclude whether the newly installed component or modification performs to the guaranteed levels. Throughout the entire upgrade and modification process, MD&A serves as Owner's Advocate to assure that the turbine owner and supplier of parts and upgrades are on a level playing field.