Variations in Gas-Turbine Blade Life and Cost due to Compressor Fouling - A Thermoeconomic Approach

The connection between gas turbine compressor fouling and expander blade lifetime is studied in a simplified manner for a gas turbine operating in a combined cycle with a constant power output.It is shown how blade materials and compressor fouling rate affect the blade lifetime, and with this background, based on a thermoeconomic approach, the economic aspects of compressor washing intervals and the possibility to find an economic optimum are studied.It is also discussed how it should be possible to employ on-line gas turbine monitoring based on artificial neural networks (ANN) in combination with a database containing blade life behavior in order to improve the blade life management strategy for an optimization of power plant life profitability.