Increase of Size of Steam Turbines and Ethylene Plant Size, Considerations on When Machinery Selection

Turbomachinery  OEM have been going forward to apply challenging technologies for critical components in order to  provide higher efficient and more reliable machines corresponding the requirement of large high power for ethylene services. 

The authors introduce  the challenging  technologies for critical components for size/capacity increase, how to select the machines, the technology development history map in past and future for typical design, verification test and application results in terms of transient fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, rotor dynamics and blade vibration strength evaluation. 

In addition, after commissioning  plant start, the turbomachinery  tend to have several  deterioration of performance and reliability for long-term operation. The typical damage and deterioration map for machine is introduced and the authors explain the practical technologies actually applied during TA , such as flow path surface treatment, effective on-line washing, combination of anti-corrosion, erosion prevention and stage performance enhancement by partial component replacement,  NDE technique for both of compressors and steam turbines including unique casing replacement technique on same foot print for capacity up revamp.