Patent Application
20180291820
The disclosure relates generally to gas turbine systems, and more particularly, to determining malfunctions in a gas turbine enclosure.
Gas turbine systems are typically positioned within a gas turbine enclosure, the latter of which includes a ventilation system to remove heat from the gas turbine system in a controlled manner. The gas turbine enclosure typically includes a number of sections that are coupled by sealed flange connections. Malfunctions may occur within the gas turbine enclosure that are difficult to identify. For example, the sealed flange connections may begin to leak over time, or flow into or out of the gas turbine enclosure may decrease over time due to blockages. The malfunctions can increase temperature within the gas turbine enclosure, reducing the advantages of the enclosure's ventilation system. Identifying the existence of a malfunction is challenging because a gas turbine system may change output during operation and, hence, the thermal energy required to be removed by its gas turbine enclosure. Conventional gas turbine enclosures include simple alarm systems that indicate when a particular operational parameter, e.g., temperature or pressure, exceed a threshold, but the systems do not identify malfunctions in the gas turbine enclosures, i.e., the source of the issue, in relation to gas turbine operation.
A first aspect of the disclosure provides a method for determining a malfunction in a gas turbine enclosure, the system including: measuring a temperature at a plurality of locations relative to the gas turbine enclosure; determining a flow rate of a cooling gas through the gas turbine enclosure; and determining a malfunction in the gas turbine enclosure exists in response to at least one of the measured temperatures and the determined flow rate contradicting a model of gas turbine system operational parameters versus respective expected temperatures at the plurality of locations and an expected flow rate of the cooling gas through the gas turbine enclosure.
A second aspect of the disclosure provides a system for determining a malfunction in a gas turbine enclosure, the system including: a plurality of thermocouples measuring a temperature at a plurality of locations relative to the gas turbine enclosure; a flow rate determinator determining a flow rate of a cooling gas through the gas turbine enclosure; and a malfunction determinator determining a malfunction in the gas turbine enclosure exists in response to at least one of the measured temperatures and the determined flow rate contradicting a model of gas turbine system operational parameters versus respective expected temperatures at the plurality of locations and an expected flow rate of the cooling gas through the gas turbine enclosure.
A third aspect of the disclosure provides a program product stored on a non-transitory, computer readable medium for determining a malfunction in a gas turbine enclosure, the computer readable medium including program code for performing the following steps: measuring a temperature at a plurality of locations relative to the gas turbine enclosure; determining a flow rate of a cooling gas through the gas turbine enclosure; and determining a malfunction in the gas turbine enclosure exists in response to at least one of the measured temperatures and the determined flow rate contradicting a model of gas turbine system operational parameters versus respective expected temperatures at the plurality of locations and an expected flow rate of the cooling gas through the gas turbine enclosure.
The illustrative aspects of the present disclosure are designed to solve the problems herein described and/or other problems not discussed.
These and other features of this disclosure will be more readily understood from the following detailed description of the various aspects of the disclosure taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings that depict various embodiments of the disclosure, in which:
It is noted that the drawings of the disclosure are not to scale. The drawings are intended to depict only typical aspects of the disclosure, and therefore should not be considered as limiting the scope of the disclosure. In the drawings, like numbering represents like elements between the drawings.
As an initial matter, in order to clearly describe the current disclosure it will become necessary to select certain terminology when referring to and describing relevant machine components within a gas turbine system or gas turbine enclosure. When doing this, if possible, common industry terminology will be used and employed in a manner consistent with its accepted meaning. Unless otherwise stated, such terminology should be given a broad interpretation consistent with the context of the present application and the scope of the appended claims. Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that often a particular component may be referred to using several different or overlapping terms. What may be described herein as being a single part may include and be referenced in another context as consisting of multiple components. Alternatively, what may be described herein as including multiple components may be referred to elsewhere as a single part.
As indicated above, the disclosure provides a gas turbine enclosure malfunction determination system, method and program product for a gas turbine enclosure.
In operation, air flows through compressor 52 and compressed air is supplied to combustor 54. Specifically, the compressed air is supplied to fuel nozzle assembly 56 that is integral to combustor 54. Fuel nozzle assembly 56 is in flow communication with combustion region 55. Fuel nozzle assembly 56 is also in flow communication with a fuel source (not shown in
GT enclosure 62 may further include a number of sensors including but not limited to: a number of temperature sensors TC1, TC2, TC3, TC4, a pressure sensor PD1, and a motor power meter PW1. Temperature sensors TC1-TC4 may include any now known or later developed temperature measurement sensors such as but not limited thermocouples, laser sensors and thermometers. In one embodiment, a plurality of temperature sensors may be positioned at a plurality of locations about GT enclosure 62 such that a temperature at a plurality of locations relative to GT enclosure 62 can be measured. In another embodiment, at least one of the plurality of locations include a flange connection 72A, 72B in GT enclosure 62. In another embodiment, the locations may include at least one location in an outlet duct (fan housing 76) of GT enclosure 62 (e.g., TC3, TC4), at least one location within GT enclosure 62 (e.g., TC1, TC2) and at least one location outside of GT enclosure 62 (e.g., TC5 in an area surrounding the enclosure). Temperature sensor TC5 at the outside location measures the ambient temperature which may provide a baseline of air temperature changes throughout GT enclosure 62. For locations within GT enclosure 62, a temperature sensor may be provided, for example, at each flange connection 72A, 72B, e.g., TC1, TC2, or other locations of potential leakage. Pressure sensor PD1 may include any form of pressure sensor. In one embodiment, pressure sensor PD1 measures a pressure differential between inlet 68 and an outlet 82 of fan housing 76. In another embodiment, PD1 may measure a fan pressure at outlet 82 of fan 78 that draws the cooling gas through GT enclosure 62. For clarity, only one pressure sensor PD1 is referenced and shown in
As shown in
Computing device 104 is shown including a memory 112, a processor (PU) 114, an input/output (I/O) interface 116, and a bus 118. Further, computing device 104 is shown in communication with an external I/O device/resource 120 and a storage system 122. As is known in the art, in general, processor 114 executes computer program code, such as GT enclosure malfunction determining system 106, that is stored in memory 112 and/or storage system 122. While executing computer program code, processor 114 can read and/or write data, such as GT enclosure malfunction determining system 106, to/from memory 112, storage system 122, and/or I/O interface 116. Bus 118 provides a communications link between each of the components in computing device 104. I/O device 120 can comprise any device that enables a user to interact with computing device 104 or any device that enables computing device 104 to communicate with one or more other computing devices. Input/output devices (including but not limited to keyboards, displays, pointing devices, etc.) can be coupled to the system either directly or through intervening I/O controllers. In addition, controller 100 receives data from a large number of sensors relative to GT enclosure 62 (
In any event, computing device 104 can comprise any general purpose computing article of manufacture capable of executing computer program code installed by a user (e.g., a personal computer, server, handheld device, etc.). However, it is understood that computing device 104 and GT enclosure malfunction determining system 106 are only representative of various possible equivalent computing devices that may perform the various process steps of the disclosure. To this extent, in other embodiments, computing device 104 can comprise any specific purpose computing article of manufacture comprising hardware and/or computer program code for performing specific functions, any computing article of manufacture that comprises a combination of specific purpose and general purpose hardware/software, or the like. In each case, the program code and hardware can be created using standard programming and engineering techniques, respectively.
Similarly, computer infrastructure 102 is only illustrative of various types of computer infrastructures for implementing the disclosure. For example, in one embodiment, computer infrastructure 102 comprises two or more computing devices (e.g., a server cluster) that communicate over any type of wired and/or wireless communications link, such as a network, a shared memory, or the like, to perform the various process steps of the disclosure. When the communications link comprises a network, the network can comprise any combination of one or more types of networks (e.g., the Internet, a wide area network, a local area network, a virtual private network, etc.). Network adapters may also be coupled to the system to enable the data processing system to become coupled to other data processing systems or remote printers or storage devices through intervening private or public networks. Modems, cable modem and Ethernet cards are just a few of the currently available types of network adapters. Regardless, communications between the computing devices may utilize any combination of various types of transmission techniques.
As previously mentioned and discussed further below, GT enclosure malfunction determining system 106 enables computing infrastructure 102 to determine a malfunction within GT enclosure 62 (
As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, the present disclosure may be embodied as a system, method or computer program product. Accordingly, the present disclosure may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may all generally be referred to herein as a “circuit,” “module” or “system.” Furthermore, the present disclosure may take the form of a computer program product embodied in any tangible medium of expression having computer-usable program code embodied in the medium.
Any combination of one or more computer usable or computer readable medium(s) may be utilized. The computer-usable or computer-readable medium may be, for example but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, device, or propagation medium. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer-readable medium would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a transmission media such as those supporting the Internet or an intranet, or a magnetic storage device. Note that the computer-usable or computer-readable medium could even be paper or another suitable medium upon which the program is printed, as the program can be electronically captured, via, for instance, optical scanning of the paper or other medium, then compiled, interpreted, or otherwise processed in a suitable manner, if necessary, and then stored in a computer memory. In the context of this document, a computer-usable or computer-readable medium may be any medium that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. The computer-usable medium may include a propagated data signal with the computer-usable program code embodied therewith, either in baseband or as part of a carrier wave. The computer usable program code may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc.
Computer program code for carrying out operations of the present disclosure may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Java, Smalltalk, C++ or the like and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similar programming languages. The program code may execute entirely on the user's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider).
The present disclosure is described below with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of the disclosure. It will be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable medium that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable medium produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide processes for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
In process P12, flow rate determinator 130 (
In process P16, malfunction determinator 132 determines a malfunction in GT enclosure 62 exists in response to at least one of the measured temperatures and the determined flow rate contradicting a model 142 of gas turbine system operational parameters versus respective expected temperatures at the plurality of locations and an expected flow rate of cooling gas 66 through GT enclosure 62. Model 142 may be referred to herein as a gas turbine enclosure (GTE) model 142 to differentiate from fan model 140, and is shown stored in storage system 122 in
In an optional process P18, a trend monitor 134 (perhaps part of malfunction determinator 132) monitors a trend in the temperature at each of the plurality of locations (e.g., at each temperature sensor TC1-TC4), and may determine a leakage malfunction exists at a first location in response to a change in a trend in the temperature at the first location. For example, where GT system 50 is operating at a steady state load, and a particular temperature sensor TC2 suddenly shows a change in temperature, malfunction determinator 132 may indicate a leak exists at the location of temperature sensor TC2.
In another optional process P20, GTE model 142 may further include a correlation between temperatures at the plurality of locations, as measured by temperature sensors TC1-TC4, and the fan flow rate with a maintenance schedule. For example, where certain temperature sensors TC3, TC4 are measuring higher than expected temperatures and a fan flow rate is lower than expected, malfunction determinator 132 may determine a maintenance activity is required based on GTE model 142. That is, GTE model 142 may indicate in certain special circumstances that a malfunction exists, but it is simply a need for maintenance. The maintenance activity can be any now known or later developed activity conducted relative to GT enclosures 62 such as but not limited to: lubricating fan 78 and/or motor 80, a cleaning of inlets 68, cleaning of fan housing 76, inlet filter (not shown) replacement and/or sensor replacements.
Embodiment of the disclosure also include GT enclosure malfunction determining system 106. As described herein, system 106 includes plurality of temperature sensors TC1-TC5 measuring a temperature at a plurality of locations relative to GT enclosure 62. System 106 further may include flow rate determinator 130 determining a flow rate of cooling gas 66 through GT enclosure 62. As noted herein, flow rate determinator 130 may include fan pressure sensor PD1 measuring a fan pressure at an outlet of a fan that draws the cooling gas through the gas turbine enclosure, and a fan motor power meter PW1 measuring a fan motor power draw of the fan. System 106 may also include malfunction determinator 132 determining a malfunction in GT enclosure 62 per the methods described herein. In an optional embodiment, system 106 may also include trend monitor 134 monitoring a trend in the temperature at each of the plurality of locations,
Embodiments of the disclosure provide a technical effect by allowing for determination of, among other forms of malfunctions, inlet 68 louver blockage, GT flange connection 72A, 72B leakage, and fan 78 and/or motor 80 issues. Embodiments of the disclosure thus allow corrections to be made to, for example, GT enclosure 62, ventilation system 74 thereof and/or GT system 50, all of which may increase overall power plant efficiency, and protect GT system 50 components and systems.
The flowchart and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate the architecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementations of systems, methods and computer program products according to various embodiments of the present disclosure. In this regard, each block in the flowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portion of code, which comprises one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function(s). It should also be noted that, in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-based systems that perform the specified functions or acts, or combinations of special purpose hardware and computer instructions.
The foregoing drawings show some of the processing associated according to several embodiments of this disclosure. In this regard, each drawing or block within a flow diagram of the drawings represents a process associated with embodiments of the method described. It should also be noted that in some alternative implementations, the acts noted in the drawings or blocks may occur out of the order noted in the figure or, for example, may in fact be executed substantially concurrently or in the reverse order, depending upon the act involved. Also, one of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that additional blocks that describe the processing may be added.
The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the disclosure. As used herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises” and/or “comprising,” when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof. “Optional” or “optionally” means that the subsequently described event or circumstance may or may not occur, and that the description includes instances where the event occurs and instances where it does not.
Approximating language, as used herein throughout the specification and claims, may be applied to modify any quantitative representation that could permissibly vary without resulting in a change in the basic function to which it is related. Accordingly, a value modified by a term or terms, such as “about,” “approximately” and “substantially,” are not to be limited to the precise value specified. In at least some instances, the approximating language may correspond to the precision of an instrument for measuring the value. Here and throughout the specification and claims, range limitations may be combined and/or interchanged, such ranges are identified and include all the sub-ranges contained therein unless context or language indicates otherwise. “Approximately” as applied to a particular value of a range applies to both values, and unless otherwise dependent on the precision of the instrument measuring the value, may indicate +/−10% of the stated value(s).
The corresponding structures, materials, acts, and equivalents of all means or step plus function elements in the claims below are intended to include any structure, material, or act for performing the function in combination with other claimed elements as specifically claimed. The description of the present disclosure has been presented for purposes of illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the disclosure in the form disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the disclosure. The embodiment was chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the disclosure and the practical application, and to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the disclosure for various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated.
