Method and system for monitoring the operation of and predicting part life consumption for turbomachinery

• US 6,343,251 B1
• Filed: 12/07/2000
• Issued: 01/29/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 10/20/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: General Electric Company
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Herron, William L., Germain, David R., Schick, Louis Andrew
• Primary Examiner(s): Camby, Richard M.
• Application Number:
  US09/731,228
• Time in Patent Office: 418 Days
• Field of Search: 701/100, 701/14, 701/29, 701/30, 701/33, 701/35, 415/13
• US Class Current: 701/100
• CPC Class Codes: F02C 9/00 Controlling gas-turbine plants; Controlling fuel supply in air- breathing jet-propulsion plants controlling air intakes F02C7/057; controlling turbines F01D; controlling compressors F04D27/00; controlling in general G05
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 3/00 Registering or indicating the condition or the working of machines or other apparatus, other than vehicles

Abstract

A system has been developed for collecting and analyzing data regarding the operation of gas turbines. The system provides reports of the operational hours of a gas turbine. The reports are useful in scheduling maintenance of gas turbines. The system includes a network of sensors monitoring the gas turbine and outputting operational data to a local computer system. A remote database server periodically collects data from several on-site systems for a plurality of gas turbines, and this data is analyzed using criteria that precisely define certain gas turbine operational events in terms that can be automatically applied to operational data collected from the gas turbines.

Claims

1. A method for tracking usage of a gas turbine comprising the steps:

a. sensing, capturing and storing data indicative of operating conditions and corresponding operating times of the gas turbine;

b. establishing criteria to define a plurality of gas turbine operational events;

c. applying the criteria to the stored data to automatically determine the timing of the plurality of gas turbine operational events;

d. generating output data indicative of the timing of each of said plurality of device operational events, and

e. graphically showing the output data to a tracking information of machine usage.

2. A method as in claim 1 wherein the criteria established include gas turbine start criteria defined by a fuel stroke reference speed of the gas turbine accelerating from zero to a greater speed.

3. A method as in claim 2 wherein the criteria established include a gas turbine Lit criteria defined by a start event as defined by the start criteria followed by a rotor speed increase to a predetermined crank speed and followed by a further increase in rotor speed.

4. A method as in claim 3 wherein the criteria established includes a fast start criteria which is accelerating the gas turbine from Lit to Full Speed No Load (FSNL) in less than a predefined period.

5. A method as in claim 4 wherein the criteria established includes a Fast Load criteria which is accelerating a gas turbine from FSNL to Full Speed Full Load (FSFL) in less than a predefined period.

6. A method as in claim 1 wherein said criteria include criteria related to usage of a hot-gas path in the gas turbine.

7. A method as in claim 1 wherein said criteria include criteria related to a usage of a rotor of the gas turbine.

8. A method for tracking usage of a gas turbine comprising the steps:

a. sensing and capturing operational data indicative of operating conditions at a series of operating times of the gas turbine, and storing the data locally to the gas turbine;

b. periodically transferring the operational data to a remote data storage location;

c. retrieving selected operational data from the remote data storage location;

d. determining a plurality of gas turbine operational events for at least one of the plurality of gas turbines, wherein said operational events are determined by applying criteria which define the events with respect to the retrieved selected operational data, and

e. generating an output reporting the operational events for said at least one of the plurality of gas turbines.

9. A method as in claim 8 wherein the retrieved selected operational data and data representative of the operational events are stored in a database server separate from the remote data storage location.

10. A method as in claim 8 wherein the criteria includes a Start criteria defined as an event when a Fuel Stroke Reference (FSR) of the gas turbine transitions from 0 RPM to a value greater than (>

) 0 RPM.

11. A method as in claim 10 wherein the criteria includes a Lit criteria defined as an event, following a Start, and occurring in the gas turbine when a rotor speed increases to greater than 80% of a typical start sequence highest crank speed and followed by two minutes of increasing rotor RPM.

12. A method as in claim 8 wherein the criteria includes a Stop criteria defined by when a FSR transitions from greater than 0 RPM to 0 RPM.

13. A method as in claim 8 wherein the criteria includes a Full Speed No Load (FSNL) criteria is defined as an event occurring when the gas turbine operates at a speed equal to or greater than 95% of a rated speed for the gas turbine and an output power from the gas turbine is less than 5% of an output baseload power output.

14. A method as in claim 8 wherein the criteria includes a Fast Start criteria defined as when the gas turbine accelerates from Lit to FSNL in a period less than a predefined time period for the gas turbine.

15. A method as in claim 11 wherein the criteria includes an Emergency Start criteria which is defined as a period in which the gas turbine accelerates from Lit to a power output (DWATT) greater than 40% of a base load for the gas turbine, where said period is less than one-half the time prescribed for a normal start of the gas turbine.

16. A method as in claim 15 wherein the criteria includes criteria for the operation of the gas turbine including Load Start, Peak Load Start, Base Load Start, Part Load Start, Peak Load Start, Base Load Start, Part Load Stop and Stop Trip.

17. A method as in claim 8 wherein the criteria includes a Hot Restart—

Fast Load criteria defined as when the gas turbine accelerates from a Lit condition to more than 50% of base load a in time period normally allocated for such an acceleration, and the acceleration occurs less than one hour after the last full speed operation of the gas turbine.

18. A method as in claim 17 wherein the criteria further includes criteria for Hot Restart—

Normal Load, Hot—

Fast Load, Hot—

Normal Load, Warm to Fast Load, Warm to Normal Load and Warm to Fast Load operation of the gas turbine.

19. A method as in claim 8 wherein the criteria includes a Cold to Fast Load criteria defined as when forty hours or more have elapsed after a last full speed gas turbine operation, before the turbine is accelerated from a Lit condition to a condition of fifty percent (50%) or more of a base load for the gas turbine, where the acceleration is performed in a period normally allotted for such an acceleration.

20. A method as in claim 19 wherein the criteria further includes criteria for a Cold to Normal Load transition, and a Stop Trip to Any Load transition of the gas turbine.

21. A system for collecting and analyzing operational events in a gas turbine comprising:

a network of sensors monitoring a plurality of operational conditions of the gas turbine;

an on-site computer system collecting data from said sensors and storing the data locally to the gas turbine;

a first remote computer system periodically downloading data from the on-site computer system and storing the data with other data collected from other on-site computer systems also collecting sensor data from gas turbines, and

a second remote computer system retrieving selected data from the first remote computer system regarding a plurality of gas turbines, said second remote computer system storing gas turbine operational event criteria, and applying the criteria to determine a plurality of operational events which occurred in each of said plurality of gas turbines.