This joint paper describes how the PI System at Uniper Technologies was used with specialist vibration monitoring equipment from Beran Instruments to manage a critical fault with a Steam Turbine at a UK CCGT Power Station. A unit at the station started to display adverse temperature readings during start-up followed by the 1/rev levels increasing rapidly with speed during the run-up. Further indications during the run-down and at barring showed cylinder distortion causing rub with a permanent shaft bend. The OEM advice was the vibration levels were severe enough to remove the unit from service, however the lead time for repair was circa 6 months. By utilizing advanced real-time monitoring and carefully targeted alarms the Station and Technology Centre devised a risk based strategy using the PI System and the Beran system to run with vibration levels usually considered unacceptably high. This kept the unit generating revenue for the whole 6 months and allowed the outage to be better planned
Speaker
Omoruyi Onobhamiukor
Omoruyi Onobhamiukor is a Mechanical Engineer with a Master’s degree from The University of Nottingham and a Chartered member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. For the past eleven years, he has been involved in developing condition monitoring techniques and strategies at Uniper and is currently technical lead of Uniper’s Condition Monitoring Service which provides remote on-line and in the field support to international power and industrial clients by incorporating data from monitoring systems like the Beran and historian data from PI in diagnosing and assessing the condition of plant machinery. Data driven techniques are at the centre of his team’s operations, but maintaining a strong focus on delivering actionable insights remains a clear and core strategy.