Analysis and management of operating risk created by turbine operation under flexible regimes

The new conditions in which coal-fired power plants, especially 200 MW units, have to operate require a considerable increase in the dynamics of their operation. The power unit start-up frequency increases and so does the frequency of changes in loads. This intensifies some wear processes, such as low- cycle fatigue and crack propagation in particular. Therefore, further operation of power units which have already been in service for a long time has to be supplemented with results of analyses and tests taking account of the intensification of wear processes. The paper presents a proposal for an extension of standard diagnostic testing of turbines by adding small punch tests (SPT) of the rotor material micro specimens. The SPT method enables a fast quasi non-destructive assessment of changes in mechanical properties, especially rotor steel embrittlement due to the turbine previous operation. The other element of the proposed testing is the analysis of the propagation rate of potential cracks in the rotor and assessment of the rotor failure probability for different scenarios of the power unit further operation.