Today’s generators are inherently reliable. A breakdown can, therefore, come as an unexpected and unwelcome surprise for the operator. What’s more, if spare parts are not readily available, the resulting downtime can be significantly prolonged. In the worst case, failure of high-speed rotating parts can have catastrophic consequences for both equipment and personnel.
Fortum Turbine and Generator Services (TGS) has developed a concept for generator diagnostics that supports condition-based maintenance of generators. Based on about 100 failure modes of a generator, individually tailored diagnostics is performed.
Inspections and diagnostic tests are analyzed by experts and a four-level risk assessment is made for each component, from level 1, base risk to level 4, high risk. The risk level of the generator is equal to highest component risk. Recommendations are given that reduces the risk of forced outage and its consequences.
The diagnostics report gives plant owners a powerful basis for updating their maintenance plans and guides future investments in maintaining risk at an acceptable level or reducing it to such a level.
