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LIFE EXTENSION AND RISK ASSESSMENT OF GAS TURBINE HOT SECTION

COMPONENTS

Conference Paper · June 1999

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 LIFE EXTENSION AND RISK ASSESSMENT OF
GAS TURBINE HOT SECTION COMPONENTS

M I Wood J M Brear R M Cotgrove

ERA Technology Limited

Leatherhead, Surrey, KT22 7SA
England

ABSTRACT
A probabilistic analysis using the Monte Carlo technique has been carried out to assess the
risk of extending the operational life of various (essentially uncooled) hot section
components in a heavy duty industrial gas turbine by 20,000 h to give a total service life of
132,000 h. For the components considered (row 1 and 2 stators), the increase in risk of
failure in extending component life was about a factor of 5, but with final failure probabilities
of 1-5 x 10-3 over the whole time in service.
.

INTRODUCTION
Whilst industrial gas turbine components enter service with recommended operating lives,
the use of judicious component assessments, coupled with the application of repair
techniques, have often allowed plant operators to extend the useful life of hot section
components. There has been a moderate amount of work carried out developing
metallurgical and engineering techniques which can be used to assess the condition and
integrity of such service run parts (Wood 1997, Koul 1988). However, one of the
uncertainties in such an assessment concerns the way in which the spread in material
properties, and component-to-component variability can be incorporated into assessments of
service run blading. Whilst individual components can be examined, it is not fully
appropriate to carry out a deterministic analysis when assessing a group of such components.

The factors governing the life of a component, or the failure rates of a group of components,
are a complex function of the initial state, the operating regime and the degradation and
failure mechanisms. In most practical situations, the variables required to describe these
factors are not single valued but distributed - either through genuine spatial or temporal
variability or through imprecision of measurement. Realistic life prediction thus benefits
from probabilistic treatment whereby the significance of these variations can be accounted
for fully, rather than ignored - as in a conventional 'lower bound' assessment.

Mechanistic approaches consider the life-limiting process directly. They require knowledge
of the critical components and failure mechanisms (creep in the case studied here), validated
models of the life-limiting processes, sufficient data to calibrate the models and statistical
techniques for constructing overall hazard/reliability functions.

Simply stated, any problem susceptible to algebraic or numerical analysis can be treated
probabilistically by recourse to the classical methods of statistics and probability theory. The
essence of a probabilistic treatment is to replace discrete inputs with distributed variables,
thus obtaining a corresponding distribution of results. The art is to maintain physical realism

G\PERSONAL\MIW\W1405-99.DOC
simultaneously with mathematical rigour.

Monte Carlo sampling methods have many applications and have been used in remanent life
assessment for some time (Brear 1993, McClung 1993). For this method, the input
distributions are sampled at random, a deterministic calculation is performed for each
combination and, from a large number of results, the failure time distribution is
approximated. The sampling can be uniformly random across the range of the input
variables, with probabilities assigned to each results on the basis of the input distributions, or
weighted to follow these distributions directly - if an appropriate formula exists.

Industrial Application
These techniques have been applied to assessing the risk associated with extending the
operating life of row and 2 stators in a heavy-duty industrial gas turbine from 112,000 h out
to 132,000 h. The requirements for this extension arose out of special operating
considerations of the plant owners. For a variety of reasons no stator components were
available for examination, and only a limited inspection was possible for these components
in-situ. Similarly, very limited information on the components' dimensions and geometry was
available. This imposes some constraints on the approach and scope of the assessment.
However, it is not an unusual state of affairs when considering the information available to
many plant operators. As such, the assessment is instructive of what can be determined
under less than ideal circumstances to assist an operator when faced with decisions on
durability issues.

MACHINE DETAILS
Four heavy duty gas turbines were installed in the late 1960's. The hot section components in
two of these units were the focus of attention in this assessment.

Configuration
The hot combustion gases from a single, freestanding, silo combustor are ducted underneath
the machine and enter the turbine through an annulus. The hot section consists of a six stage
turbine with a forged monoblock rotor. The various components are not cooled with the
exception of:-

a) limited cooling air flow over the lower aerofoil/platform of the row 1 stator.

b) a small quantity of compressor air fed through the second stage stator.

The inlet temperature is measured at two locations in the inlet annulus, and one just below it
(in the duct). These values are averaged, and this single value is recorded for use in the life
consumption calculations.

General Operation
Each unit drives a compressor, and the requirements of this dictate the variable speed and
inlet temperature pattern that the units are subjected to (the speed of the unit does not affect
the stresses in the stator vanes). The units operate virtually continuously for 50 weeks/year
with very few stop/start cycles. This operational pattern has been maintained since the four
units were installed.

Operational Data

G\PERSONAL\MIW\W1405-99.DOC
To track the life consumption of the time limited components under these variable operating
conditions the manufacturer had provided preformatted record sheets. These split the
operational speeds and temperatures into predefined bands. The running hours in each band
were then factored and combined to give an equivalent running time for the component. The
components were then deemed (by the original equipment manufacturer) to have reached the
design life when the equivalent hours tally for the parts reached 100,000 h. Under the
operating regime in use, this value was met after ~120,000 h of actual operation.

Components of Interest
The row 1 and 2 vanes were fabricated as single aerofoil elements (no shrouding) from a
16Cr16Ni stainless steel (X8CrNiMoBNb1616). There were held in T slots in the outer
casing.

COMPONENT STRESSES
The vane stresses were calculated from the gas bending moments and then combined with the
section second moment of area to generate the stresses in the vane.

The aerofoil section properties for the row 1 and row 2 vanes, such as centroid and moment
of area, were calculated from data digitised from a tracing of each vane cross section taken
during an on-site inspection.
The overall turbine conditions are given in Table 1.

Table 1

Item Entry Exit Units

Mass flow 103 103 kg/sec

Temperature 702 375 °C
Pressure 469 83 kPa
Shaft speed 3640 - rpm

Entry condition to the row 2 vane were calculated assuming the stage polytropic efficiency to
be the same as the overall turbine polytropic efficiency. This is reasonable as the design
technology level throughout the turbine was consistent.

Nominal gas flow angles at exit from the row 1 vane and row 1 blade were estimated from
the observed geometry of the blading on available engineering drawings. To allow
calculation of the velocity triangles the axial velocity at entry to and exit from the vane row
was assumed to be the same. It has also been assumed that there is no radial flow
component.

The resulting stator temperatures and stresses are given in Table 2.

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 Table 2

Vane Entry Temperature Peak Stress

°C (MPa)
Row 1 702 12
Row 2 652 32

PROBABILISTIC ANALYSIS: BACKGROUND DETAILS

Material Properties
The average stress rupture properties for the 16Cr16Ni MoNb steel were analysed to yield a
Larson Miller (LM) parametric expression of the form:-

LM = A log  + B log C

The properties used for the 16Cr16NiMoNb steel are those which have been agreed by the
International Standards Organisation (TC17/SC10/ETP).

Property and Operating Condition Distribution

The standard operating records for the units were provided by the plant operators for a 2½
year period. These were in the input format dictated by the manufacturer's component life
consumption calculation. However, since the data below a cut off value had been
amalgamated (ie below 715°C), it was necessary to estimate a (standard) distribution on the
basis of the information provided since the probabilistic analysis requires a full distribution
of data for the temperature. This is shown in Fig. 1 (by the dotted lines) along with the
cumulative probability (solid lines). A good estimated distribution for the inlet temperature
was found.

In the absence of specific statistical data on the lower bound properties, a common approach
is to determine material properties at a stress value 20% above the operating stress. This has
been used very successfully on many occasions by a number of organisations to give an
appropriate estimate of -2 (standard deviation) properties at the operational stress level.
That this equates to -2 is actually conservative in a probabilistic analysis since it increases
the number of components which will be presumed to have below -3 properties, as
compared to the number which would be in this category were one to presume that +20% in
stress equated to -3 property levels. It is known that the original equipment manufacturer
based the design on a property level of 1 in 1000.

Analysis of Row 1 Stator Vanes

Since the two units were indistinguishable in terms of their operating temperature profile
(Fig. 1), only one analysis, applicable to both units, was carried out. It should be appreciated
that the probability plots are given in terms of real fired hours, not equivalent hours.

Two different situations have been assessed:-

a) Assume that the metal temperatures equal the recorded input temperature

G\PERSONAL\MIW\W1405-99.DOC
 b) Assume that the metal temperatures are 25°C higher (ie a localised hot spot in the
inlet temperature distribution).
The results are plotted (Fig. 2) as:-

a) the probability of any one specific stator vane failing as a function of the running
time (all metal temperatures the same).

b) the probability of any stator vane failing as a function of running time (all metal
temperatures the same).

c) the probability of any one of a group of five stators failing when all five stators are
25°C hotter than the rest of the stators

The probabilities for an individual stator and a group of 5 stators in a full set of row 1 stators
have been determined (Fig. 2). The latter is on the basis that only a small group of stators
would be affected by a local hot spot.

For the first scenario, (all vanes at the same temperature) the probability of a failure is
effectively zero over the time span of interest. It is only by allowing for temperature
inhomogeneity in the gas flow that probabilities of failure increase into the range of interest.
The temperature inhomogeneity is likely to be moderately stable spatially within the
combustion system/inlet to the turbine (rather than varying randomly with time around the
inlet circumference). Hence the increased likelihood of failure (because of locally raised
metal temperatures) will only apply to a limited number of stators in a particular location in
the row. An appropriate group size has been set at five, ie representing a hot spot extending
over ~10% of unit's circumference.

If the size of the temperature inhomogeneity is set at +25°C, the probability of failure (in a
group of five stators) is less than 1 in 1000 at 112,000 h (1.6 x 10-4). Increasing the period in
service to 132,000 h increases the risk by a factor of ~5, such that for the group of 5 stators
the risk now stands at 8 x 10-4. This is almost equivalent to saying that if one ran 1000
machines to 132,000h then it is likely that there will be at least one stator failure in the fleet
of 1000 machines.

Analysis of Row 2 Stator Vanes

As with the row 1 stators, the two units have been treated as identical from an operations
(temperature) viewpoint. The same two basic scenarios have been considered

a) Recorded temperatures adjusted to take account of the temperature drop over the
first stage
b) As 'a' but +25°C

The results are given in Fig. 3. Again, it must be appreciated that 'time' is in real fired hours,
not equivalent hours. As may be seen, the results are virtually identical to those arrived at for
the row 1 stators.

G\PERSONAL\MIW\W1405-99.DOC
DISCUSSION
So far as the gas turbine operators were concerned, the main concern was to determine the
increase in risk that would occur if the stator components were run on in service for another
20,000 h, so as to reach 132,000 h service.

The probabilistic analysis for the row 1 and 2 stators has shown that they are effectively
equivalent from a failure probability point of view. It also indicates that the only way a
significant failure probability can be achieved is through the presence of a local temperature
variation, ie a hot spot due to combustion gas inhomogeneity. Considering a group of five
stators (as being representative of the circumferential extent of a hot spot), then at the +25°C
level, the risk (in the group of five stators) at 112,000 h is less than 10-3 (1.6 x 10-4 for row 1,
7 x 10-5 for row 2). Increasing the operating period to 132,000 h increases the risks by ~ x5,
reaching a value of 8 x 10-4 for the row 1 stators. This is still a low probability of failure.

Whilst it is to be expected that the absolute numbers for failure probability given by the
probabilistic analysis must be treated with a little care (because of the necessary
approximations made in calculating the stresses and stage 2 temperatures) the sensitivity of
these failure probabilities to changes in running time, or temperature inhomogeneity factors
are expected to be correct, since the material models and probabilistic methodologies used
here are well founded. However, various areas of conservatism can be identified

i) The stator temperature is assumed to be uniform along its entire length (span), even
close to the platform, the position of maximum bending stress. Additionally it is
assumed that this temperature equals the average gas temperature. This ignores
surface effects, and the fact that the stators are fixed into a carrier, one side of which
is cooled by compressor discharge over at ~250°C. This heat sink should ensure
that there is a decrease in stator metal temperature towards the carrier - ie at the
position of maximum bending stress the metal temperature would be lower than the
average gas temperature. In addition, some compressor discharge air flows over the
platform/lower aerofoil, having been introduced through a controlled gap between
the stator carrier and the hot gas duct.

ii) The stage 2 stator has a small degree of internal cooling. Whilst of an unquantified
amount, this will reduce the metal temperatures in the stator. Changes in metal
temperature of the order of 10°-20°C have a significant effect on the failure
probability-time relationships

Overall, it is considered that the likely overestimation of metal temperatures used in the
probabilistic model has produced somewhat higher than realistic probabilities of failure. It
requires a reduction in metal temperatures towards the base of the stator aerofoil of only
~25°C from that presumed for the failure probabilities to reduce well below the 10-3-10-4
levels at 112-132,000 h.

In the light of these results, the gas turbine operators decided to extend the time in service for
both sets of stator vanes

G\PERSONAL\MIW\W1405-99.DOC
CONCLUSIONS

The consequences of extending the period of service of the row 1 and 2 stators and row 1
blades beyond the design life of 100,000 h (equivalent) out to 120,000 h equivalent (112,000
h to 132,000 h of operation) has been assessed by means of a probabilistic analysis.

i) The probabilistic analysis of the row 1 and 2 stators indicates a low likelihood of failure
in 132,000 h of service even when introducing a local 25°C increase in metal temperature to
accommodate inlet gas temperature inhomogeneity.

ii) The increased risk by extending the service life from 112,000 h to 132,000 h for the row 1
and 2 stators is of the order of ~x5. However, the probabilistic analysis is still considered to
indicate a low risk of failure at 132,000 h for these components.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors acknowledge the permission of the directors of ERA Technology to publish this
paper.

REFERENCES

Brear, J. M., 1993, "Probabilistic approaches to life prediction illustrated by case studies,
SMiRT Conference, Seminar B.

Koul, A. K., and Castillo R., 1988, "Assessment of Service Induced Microstructural Damage
and its Rejuvenation in Turbine Blades," Met. Trans, Vol. 19A, pp. 2049-2066.

McClung, R. C., Bernstein, H. L., Buckingham, J. P., Allen, J. M., Touchton G. L., 1993,
"Probabilistic Analysis of Industrial Gas Turbine Durability," ASME Conference Preprint
93-GT-427, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, NY.

Wood, M. I., 1997, "Life Consumption, Damage Evaluation and Remanent Life Assessment
for Gas Turbine Hot Section Components," Int Conf Power Stations '97, Association des
Ingenieurs de Montefiore, Liege, pp. 297-302.

G\PERSONAL\MIW\W1405-99.DOC
 1
0.9 GT1
0.8
0.7 GT2
Probability

0.6 Cumulative
0.5
0.4
0.3 Distribution
0.2
0.1
0
660 670 680 690 700 710 720 730 740 750 760
Temperature (°C)

Fig. 1: Units 1 and 2 operating temperature distribution

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 Units 1,2 - First Row Stator

1
Single stator
Cumulative Failure Probability

Whole row
0.1
Single stator, T + 25°

Five stators, T +25°

0.01

0.001

0.0001
10000 100000 1000000 10000000
Service Life, h

Fig. 2: Failure probability with time in service for row 1 stator vane in units 1 and 2

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 Units 1,2 - Second Row Stator

Single stator
Cumulative Failure Probability

Whole row
0.1
Single stator, T + 25°
5 stators, T +25°

0.01
.

0.001

0.0001
10000 100000 1000000 10000000
Service Life, h

Fig. 3: Failure probability with time in service for the row 2 stator vane in units 1 and 2

G\PERSONAL\MIW\W1405-99.DOC

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