Summary Report

On

Inspection/Assessment of MS6001 & MS5001 Units

At

Old/New Mullah Abdullah Power Plant, Kirkuk, Iraq

PREPARED BY

LIFE PREDICTION TECHNOLOGIES INC

23-1010 Polytek Street, Ottawa,
Ontario-K1J 9J1,
Canada
 Summary Report: Inspection Assessment of MS6001 & MS5001 Units

TABLE OF CONTENT

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................. 3
OBJECTIVES ......................................................................................................................................... 3
DELIVERABLES: .................................................................................................................................. 3
SITE ASSESSMENT:........................................................................................................................... 3
RESULTS AND OBSERVATIONS: .................................................................................................. 5
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS FOR ALL THE UNITS: ............................................................................................. 5
EXHAUST TEMPERATURE ............................................................................................................................ 6
BOROSCOPY INSPECTION RESULTS TURBINE ................................................................................................ 6
COMPRESSOR INSPECTION ......................................................................................................................... 8
HOT GAS PATH COMPONENTS .................................................................................................................... 8
PICTURES: ............................................................................................................................................ 9
TURBINE SECTION .................................................................................................................................... 9
COMPRESSOR SECTION ........................................................................................................................... 10
HOT GAS PATH COMPONENTS .................................................................................................................. 11

© LPTi, Protected Under Trade Secrets Act 2

 Summary Report: Inspection Assessment of MS6001 & MS5001 Units
Introduction

This project assessment was a part of a major repair and overhaul work for four GE Frame 5 and
Five GE Frame 6 power generation units located at Old/New Mullah Abdullah Power Plant, Kirkuk,
Iraq.

Objectives

The objective of this project assessment was to provide information and reconstruction project
information on the present state of the units to the interested parties in order to make the units
as new which included the following:

• Inspect and provide details on the present state of the systems

• Baroscopic examination of the combustion turbine section, compressor section and all
turbine auxiliary equipment as required.
• Inspect the mechanical support systems as required.
• Inspect all instrumentation installations and calibrations as required.
• Inspect all mechanical pump alignments, and identify deficiencies as required.

Deliverables:

• Provide detailed information on the present condition of the units and all the necessary
components needed to make them as new.
• Written assessment report for all work to be performed during the site visit

Site Assessment:

All the nine-operating/standby units have crossed there expected life of operation. From the
available EOD it is clear that there has been no major repairs or overhaul performed on these
engines.

Engine Unit Start Date Operation Trips Fired

Type Number Hours Starts
6 September 49,406 106 233
18,2000
5 June 22,2000 47,461 95 211
Frame 6
3 April 17, 2000 50,523 101 160
2 March 1,2000 52,698 83 148
1 Not Available 52208 96 211
10 1981 146,308 602
9 1981 161,260 504
Frame 5
5 1981 132,404 630
4 1981 152,459 720

© LPTi, Protected Under Trade Secrets Act 3

 Summary Report: Inspection Assessment of MS6001 & MS5001 Units
These Gas turbine engines operate under the most extreme conditions and degradation occurred
by a variety of mechanisms:

1. Surface damage occurs to parts as a result of erosion, corrosion, fretting, wear or

impact by foreign objects and particulates. This loss of surface integrity and component
geometry leads to losses in aerodynamic and thermal efficiency, and reduced power
output for a given fuel burn.
2. The cyclic nature of power demands and the high frequency pressure fluctuations due
to turbulence in gas flows leads to internal structural damage in the form of fatigue in
rotating parts such as turbine discs, shafts, spacers and blades.
3. All components in the hot gas stream, such as turbine discs and blades, guide vanes,
seals, and combustor casings and linings, suffer from cyclic fluctuations in temperature
as well as inertia loads, both of which cause internal structural damage due to creep,
thermal fatigue, thermo-mechanical fatigue (TMF) and/or high temperature low cycle
fatigue (HTLCF), and various combinations of these.

The net result of the combined action of all these damage modes was that many of these high
cost components have finite and often very short lives.

Operations are often performed on the basis of safety by inspection, which is time consuming and
expensive. Relatively crude methods are used to monitor trends and major engine operating
parameters such as temperatures and pressure ratios across different stages and fuel burn, from
which gross changes in component geometry may be inferred. Internal structural damage on the
other hand, due to creep, fatigue or TMF, is difficult to detect, and only empirical models are
available to provide guidance on damage accumulation rates and the critical levels of damage
beyond which remedial action would be essential.

LPTi provides services requiring expert use of computational and analytical methods.

• Predicting the development of faults and residual lives of in-service parts of turbines and
other machinery (maximize capital assets, reduced spare part inventory and increase
plant availability),
• Optimizing overhaul cycles (reduce down time, increased plant availability and reduced
maintenance costs),
• Predicting incipient failures and extending component lives by allowing intervention before
faults become a serious threat. Maximize capital investments in aging turbines while
reducing risk of catastrophic failures resulting in lost revenues and service availability –
the operators maintenance dilemma

© LPTi, Protected Under Trade Secrets Act 4

 Summary Report: Inspection Assessment of MS6001 & MS5001 Units
• Accurately determine when each part on a specific engine in a fleet needs to be replaced
based on actual in-service operating condition
• Accurately schedule inspection and overhaul cycles of each engine in the fleet based on
actual usage and operating conditions
• Reduce or eliminate inventory of spares
• Develop intervention strategies for life extension before it is too late

LPTi uses its XactLifeTM software, which is an advanced expert system that allows the condition of
critical, and life limited steam and gas turbine components to be assessed in near-real time while
in service in an engine. The operating conditions in an engine are monitored in real time and
analyzed to determine the response of critical components in terms of stresses, strains and
temperature distributions. The damaging loads and other environmental factors are used
together with physics-based damage accumulation models to predict critical damage locations
(also known as fracture critical locations) and the life limiting damage mode(s) including creep,
fatigue, thermal fatigue, oxidation or combinations of these. Calculations are made of life
consumed and residual life remaining using either safe-life concepts or damage tolerance
concepts and employing either deterministic or probabilistic methods.

Results and Observations:

General Observations for all the units:

• All the units were in a real bad state. There was lot of oil in and around the areas where
the units were operating which were caused either due to leakages or because of poor
maintenance on the part of the workers of Mullah Abdullah Power Plant.
• All the Frame 5 and Frame 6 units were operating well below there capacity e.g. the
frame 6 units were operating at 15.5 MW instead of there original capacity of 37 MW
• In case of Frame 5 most of the filters were either missing or they were very dirty leading
foreign material towards the compressor compartment.
• In case of the lube oil system, fuel transfer system and the fuel gas transfer system it
was observed that all the filters need to be replaced. The maintenance people used to put
whatever filter fits wherever without checking kind of filter, size of meshing required,
diameter of filter etc.
• The water used for cooling purposes is used directly without processing it with anti-
corrosive chemical so as to prevent corrosion and ensure longer life of the components
due to this we saw visible areas of oxidation.

© LPTi, Protected Under Trade Secrets Act 5

 Summary Report: Inspection Assessment of MS6001 & MS5001 Units
• The overall condition of the turbine/generator buildings was not good. The walls were
corroded, doors were broken, louvers where either broken or had no filters installed, the
fire extinguishing system is not working in most of the units.
• Due to the unavailability of data the present state of the motors and pumps could not be
determined therefore, it is suggested to either replace them to save downtime(from the
available operating hours it is assumed that the motors and pumps have operated for
more than there expected life of 32000 hours) or perform the following: examine the
collector rings, brushes, brush holders and studs for cleanliness and wear, insulation and
winding and perform functionality tests.

Exhaust Temperature

Thermocouple Location Unit 1 Unit 2

WS1FI1 385 397
WS1FI2 385 402
WS1AO1 483 459
WS1AO2 483 474
WS2FI1 433 442
WS2FI2 431 449
WS2AO1 500 447
WS2AO2 500 454
WS3FI1 407 437
WS3FI2 -78 449
WS3AO1 259 290
WS3AO2 262 297

From the above control room readings Exhaust Gas temperature trends show that the
thermocouples are working normally but there are occasional hot spots present in side the hot
gas combustion path 3. The original capacity of the units under normal conditions is 37 MW but
the generation capacity for these two units is limited because the axial discharge compressor is
very dirty internally. The temperature is high because of low cooling and compressed pressure. It
is important to mention that for the energized unit 1 thermocouple WS3FI2 is not working.

Boroscopy Inspection Results Turbine

MS 6001

© LPTi, Protected Under Trade Secrets Act 6

 Summary Report: Inspection Assessment of MS6001 & MS5001 Units

Unit 1 Unit 2 Unit 3 Unit 5 Unit 6

Cooling Abnormal Cracking Abnormal Oxidation/
Hole Wear Oxidation/ Wear No visual wear or
Plugging (missing Corrosion/ (missing damage
Nozzle
Abnormal junks) Erosion junks)
1st stage
Wear Abnormal
Wear
Pitting Pitting Corrosion/ Corrosion/ Oxidation/
Bucket Corrosion Corrosion Erosion Erosion Corrosion/
Erosion
No visual No visual No visual Abnormal Erosion
wear or wear or wear or Wear Cooling Hole
Nozzle
damage damage damage (missing Plugging
2nd stage junks)
No visual No visual Corrosion/ Corrosion/ No visual wear or
Bucket wear or wear or Erosion Erosion damage
damage damage
No visual No visual No visual Corrosion
Inspection
Nozzle wear or wear or wear or
Could Not
damage damage damage
3rd stage be
No visual No visual No visual Pitting
Performed
Bucket wear or wear or wear or
damage damage damage

MS 5001

Unit 4 Unit 5 Unit 9 Unit 10

Nozzle Pitting Inspection Pitting Pitting
could not Erosion
be
1st stage performed
Bucket No visual Corrosion Corrosion Wear on
wear or the tip
damage

Nozzle Light Light Inspection Corrosion

Pitting Pitting could not
Bucket No visual Light be Light
2nd stage
wear or Wear on performed Wear
damage the tip

Considering that the units have operated for a long period of time without any major repair or
overhaul it will be prudent to apply inspection based life cycle management approach to
maintaining the discs at overhaul. This way, the risk of catastrophic failure due to corrosion-
induced damage etc. can be minimized and the full life potential of these expensive parts can also
be utilized. It will allow the turbine discs to be used well beyond the design life recommended by
the OEM.

© LPTi, Protected Under Trade Secrets Act 7

 Summary Report: Inspection Assessment of MS6001 & MS5001 Units
Compressor Inspection

Boroscope inspection was performed on the different stages of the compressor and it was found
that there was no abnormal wear on the compressor nozzles and buckets. However, it was
observed that in most of the units the components were very dirty. It is recommended to perform
major cleaning operation with aluminum oxide.

LPTi team observed that in case of all the units the filter house was the most neglected
compartment. In case of the Frame 5 units either the filters were missing or they were really
dirty. Servicing the air filters is one of the most important maintenance operations to be
performed to ensure long compressor life.

Hot Gas Path Components

The combustion liners, transition pieces, crossfire tubes and fuel nozzles should be removed and
replaced with new or repaired ones. Most of these components show indication of high
temperature working conditions leading to deterioration of Thermal Barrier Coating (TBC) from
the surface or broken components.

In case of cross fire tubes, retainers and transition pieces the most common problems were

• Missing coating
• Broken seals
• Distortion
• Weld cracks

© LPTi, Protected Under Trade Secrets Act 8

 Summary Report: Inspection Assessment of MS6001 & MS5001 Units
Pictures:

Turbine Section

Severe damage to the 1st stage nozzle of a Frame 6 unit

Cooling Hole Plugging Corrosion on the shroud block

Pitting and Erosion

© LPTi, Protected Under Trade Secrets Act 9

 Summary Report: Inspection Assessment of MS6001 & MS5001 Units
Compressor Section

Dirt on the compressor components because of missing filters

Severe Pitting/Corrosion on the compressor blade and disc

© LPTi, Protected Under Trade Secrets Act 10

 Summary Report: Inspection Assessment of MS6001 & MS5001 Units

Hot Gas Path Components

Body Cracks/Damaged

Deterioration of
Internal coating

Worn out

General areas of problem in combustor liner

© LPTi, Protected Under Trade Secrets Act 11

 Summary Report: Inspection Assessment of MS6001 & MS5001 Units

Cross Fire Tubes missing area and blocked holes

Damaged Seals Damaged Transition Piece

Corroded Heat Exchanger Tube Bundles Corroded Heat Exchanger Drum

(Effect of untreated water) (Effect of untreated water)

© LPTi, Protected Under Trade Secrets Act 12