Condition Monitoring of Turbomachinery – Tutorial 1

The advent of miniaturized electronics to the field of machinery condition monitoring has led to efficiency and avoidance of costly failures only imagined a decade ago. The “premium” for such insurance is becoming more and more justifiable. The difference between an efficient profit generating machine and an expensive wreck may beonly 0,25 mm – about the thickness of a fin-gernail. That is typical of the clearances between steam turbine blades and diaphragms that allow energy to be extracted from superheated, high-pressure steam to turn generators and produce condensed steam, which is returned to the boiler to start the cycle over. The smaller the internal clearances, the higher the efficiency, but the greater the risk of catastrophic contact between rotating and stationary parts. This risk can be worth over US $500,000 per day on a 600 MW unit, so the “premium” for insurance like machinery condition monitoring should be easy to justify.