×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Prediction Gas Turbine System Reliability

Prediction Gas Turbine System Reliability

Prediction Gas Turbine System Reliability

(OP)
I am doing a reliability study for a Solar MARS 90 vintage 1980ish. The MTTF/MTBF data that I have been able to get my hands on is somewhat suspect. Does anyone know a good source of reliability data?

RE: Prediction Gas Turbine System Reliability

Can you get the historical service/ maintenance/ outage/ failure data for that particular turbine in that particular installation?

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: Prediction Gas Turbine System Reliability

(OP)
The maintenance data I have been able to put my hands on is very limited. I have been doing standards based reliability prediction with mediocre, in my opinion, results. Is there a good mechanical reliability prediction standard?

RE: Prediction Gas Turbine System Reliability

MTTF/MTBF data is just about site specific - depends largely on fuel type and quality (gas/liquid), quality of air filtration , duty (power gen/gas compression). Wash regime contributes as well.

These factors can vary enormously from site to site and give widely varying MTTF/MTBF

RE: Prediction Gas Turbine System Reliability

TPL's comments are as valuable as you can get. The actual duty experienced by the machine is all-important. Compared to "utlity size" machines, this is a small unit, but it is subject to the same problems. A gas turbine that is never heavily loaded can run indefinitely (multiple years) with little accumulated wear and thermal damage, but just a few minutes at excessive loads and temperatures can be the equivalent of months or even years of otherwise "normal" operation. Very rapid loading from a cold start is hard on these machines, too. If you don't have all of the actual instantaneous load, fuel consumption, and exhaust temperature recording charts (or their electronic equivalent), complete with calibration records, for the specific machine, there is no coherent basis for any meaningful formal evaluation. If you are lucky enough to be able to get credible testimony about the unit's operating history from operators and mechanics who are familiar with the actual machine, this would be the next best basis on which to make a judgement. Any attempt to use nominal factors for the engine series as a basis for a formal evaluation will be little more than an exercise in "fun with numbers."

Valuable advice from a professor many years ago: First, design for graceful failure. Everything we build will eventually fail, so we must strive to avoid injuries or secondary damage when that failure occurs. Only then can practicality and economics be properly considered.

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources