Plant Integrity Assessment & Structure Mechanics

Ensuring the reliability of large rotating machinery

 

The lifetime of power plant equipment is increasingly extended. In addition, they often need to operate in cycling mode, even though they were originally designed to work at base load. These trends increase the loads and stresses on plant equipment. Laborelec addresses these issues using its advanced knowledge of structure mechanics and material degradation mechanisms.

Assessing material integrity and behaviour

Turbine blades, rotor disks, shafts, valves, and other components of large rotating machinery are subject to various types of degradation. To ensure their reliability, Laborelec offers:

• Integrity assessment: we evaluate the integrity of plant components based on the analysis of various types of material degradation mechanisms, such as creep, fatigue, and corrosion.
• Structure mechanics: we analyze the mechanical behaviour of plant components during operation as well as their interaction with other equipment components.

Broad range of analyses for large rotating equipment

Our experts carry out tests and analyses in our dedicated laboratory or in the field. Among the many techniques used are:

• Metallurgic investigations and fractography
• Mechanical tests
• Modal analyses
• Material stress calculations
• Operating parameter analyses

We also systematically improve guidelines on inspection programs for overhauls or dedicated verifications for root cause analyses.

Assisting plants with root cause analyses and troubleshooting

Based on our assessments, we assist customers in:

• Troubleshooting and monitoring. We help customers resolve or monitor the problems that were identified during assessments. We offer recommendations on the unit's operational limits, specific monitoring programs, or balancing support.
• Root cause analysis. With the assistance of our colleagues in other departments, we ensure optimal diagnosis and recommendations to identify and tackle the true cause of a problem.

Contact

For more information, contact us.