ASME Power Boilers Ch25 - Steam Turbine and Generator Inspection

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"A GUIDE TO SECTION I OF THE ASME BOILER AND PRESSURE VESSEL CODE" - KR Rao (Editor) 12-11-10
CHAPTER
25
STEAM TURBINE AND GENERATOR INSPECTION AND CONDITION ASSESSMENT

Lawrence D. Nottingham
CREDITS
The material presented in this chapter includes certain text owned by Structural Integrity Associates, Inc. (SI), reproduced with the permission of SI. All gures, photographs, and diagrams presented are owned by SI. by conduction through the insulation to the rotor and stator core where the convective cooling occurred. Step increases in unit output were achieved coincidental with major ventilation improvementssealed machines with integral gas coolers; increases in gas pressure from 15 to 30 to 45, 60, and 75 psi, and therefore increased heat dissipation capacity; the use of lower density and higher heat capacity cooling gases as the cooling medium; direct gas cooling of the stator and rotor coils; liquid (water) cooling of the stator coils; and even water cooling of the rotor coils in some non-domestic designs. Additionally, advances in insulation materials enabled operation at higher temperature without degradation of the insulating properties of the materials. At one point in the mid1970s through mid-1980s, cryogenically cooled superconducting generators were considered the next design generation, and at least one prototype machine was built domestically. As these advances were made, machine complexity increased dramatically. Hydrogen gas was found to be a very effective cooling medium, and it quickly became the standard. Where it was once necessary only to pass ambient air through the machine, it became necessary to create sealed systems and maintain high Hydrogen purity because of the explosive nature of Hydrogen when mixed with air. Elaborate labyrinth and gland sealing systems for the rotors, integral hydrogen coolers, hydrogen dryers, and auxiliary support systems resulted. Where the inherent rigidity of components in small machines generally avoided vibration issues, elaborate coil bracing systems were required as the machines grew is size and the coils became longer and more exible and therefore more prone to vibration and fatigue. Rotor bearing systems evolved from simple sleeve bearings with pooled lubricant to relatively complex tilting pad bearings with elaborate seals, pumped lubricant, and complex auxiliary support systems to remove particulates, cool the oil, and safely remove hydrogen gas. In parallel, advances in materials were required to keep pace with the increased size of major components, particularly rotor components. Stress in a rotating component is directly related to size (diameter) and rotational speedlarger and faster both equate to increased stress. For integral pole rotors, i.e., those having magnetic poles integral to a single piece rotor as found exclusively in steam turbine generators, a maximum of four magnetic poles was established as the practical limit for number of poles. To produce
25.1
INtrOdUctiON
The fundamental design concepts embodied in steam turbines and generators are fairly simpleallow high pressure steam to expand through a series of blades mounted to a rotating member to extract thermal energy from pressurized steam and convert it to mechanical energy in the form of torque. Then utilize this torque to rotate a large electromagnet past a series of conductors to produce current ow in the conductorspretty simple. However, as simple as this seems, these are very complicated machines that involve essentially all aspects of engineeringstatics and dynamics, heat transfer, uid mechanics, thermodynamics, ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy, organic and inorganic chemistry, steam cycle chemistry, materials behavior (stress/strain), fracture mechanics, corrosion, erosion, electrical (power) engineering, electric circuits and circuit models, electromagnetics, control theory and controls, power system analysis, dielectrics and electrical insulation, tribology, and various forms of materials joining from glues and resins to soldering, brazing, and welding. Looking back at the evolution of steam turbines and generators, it quickly becomes clear that the single-most limiting factor that has controlled machine output capacity has almost universally been the ability to dissipate heat from the generator. While numerous, signicant advances have been made in turbine efciency and unit rating, were it not for the generator output limitations, the additional mechanical work required to power the generator could easily be provided by simply adding more turbines. In fact, that has been one means of powering larger generatorsadding turbines in tandem driving a single generator. Early generator designs featured air cooling, at ambient pressure and temperature, and conventional cooling schemesconvective cooling of the rotor steel and stator core and indirect cooling of the electrical coils
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electrical current at a specic frequency, which in the US is 60 Hz, the magnetic poles must pass the stator coils at that frequency; consequently, 3600 and 1800 RPM are the operating speeds for 2-pole and 4-pole rotors, respectively. With the speed dened, stresses can be determined based on the size, and limits can be established based on the stress capacity of the material. So, to build larger machines, materials had to evolve accordingly. In addition to the load carrying capabilities of the materials, for generators, specic alloys evolved to provide specic electrical characteristics. Turning to the turbines, many of the advances came via materials improvements, and alloy evolution and selection were based on operation at high temperature in a steam environment. Material improvements have allowed designers to take turbines to higher temperatures and pressures, with increased output as a result. Similar to the generator rotors, at a given speed, turbine rotor size effectively establishes the stress and therefore the material properties required for the rotor. Additionally, and again in a similar fashion as for the generator rotor, specic alloys evolved for the various turbines based on certain design conditions. For higher temperature rotors, which tend to be the smaller, typically high pressure (HP) and some intermediate pressure (IP) units, high temperature creep and temper embrittlement may be issues. Consequently, specic alloys evolved to provide enhanced resistance to these damage mechanisms. For the larger low pressure (LP) units, on the other hand, the lower operating temperatures mean that creep and embrittlement likely are not issues. However, the larger size dictates higher strength materials because of the generally higher stress associated with larger size. So, different materials evolved to meet these requirements. Other considerations involved in material evolution and selection include corrosion resistance and possibly steam, water droplet, and hard particle erosion resistance. And since blade velocity is directly related to diameter, different considerations come into play in these regards. Design of the smaller HP and IP rotors with the shorter blades will involve different considerations than the large LP rotors with long blades running at blade tip velocities near or exceeding Mach speeds. Vibration and vibration analysis also was an integral and important part of the expansion of turbine size and capacity. Analogous to the small generators, in which the components were relatively small and stiff, growth in size typically equated to increased exibility and therefore lower natural frequencies. As turbine blades grew in size, so did the need for dynamic analysis to assure that natural frequencies remained well away from any operational frequencies. Operating hand in hand with all of these design and material considerations and evolution, improved design tools and computerization have enabled improved precision and reduction of conservatism, resulting directly in increased turbine and generator output. And this leads directly into the subject of this documentturbine and generator inspection and condition assessment. In the older machines, there was greater uncertainty associated with certain aspects of the designs, particularly materials and design calculations. Coincident with the evolution of improvements in materials and reduction in the uncertainty associated with certain behavioral characteristic was an increased ability to take advantage of these; that is, to work closer to the limits. And so, condition assessment is an issue for old and new alike. Inspection and condition assessment of steam turbine and generator components is a complex process involving a signicant number of components, an array of different materials, numerous potential damage mechanisms, and the full range of available non-destructive evaluation (NDE) methods and techniques. Add to this data analysis and then the stress and fracture evaluations,
and it is easy to understand that many, many combinations are possible. Insofar as the scope of this document is concerned, there are many, many tests routinely performed on various turbine and generator components and typically classied as maintenance tests. For the generator, these may include electrical tests to assess the viability of ongoing operation of the existing generator insulations, tests to conrm that the stator end turn bracing continues to maintain the coil end turns properly detuned from natural frequencies, tests for stator core tightness, wedge tightness tests, and so on. For the turbine, maintenance inspections include inspection of the stationary and rotating blades for cracking and other signs of distress including droplet erosion, water cutting, tenon cracking, tie wire cracking, and many others; they include dimensional measurements to conrm clearances at seals, and so on. These maintenance inspections generally detect conditions that can and are remedied at that time. Each test or measurement typically has an established limit, and once the limit is exceeded, the parts are either repaired or replaced. This might involve, for example, tightening of the generator stator end turn bracing, re-wedging the winding slots to tighten the compression on the coils, removing and replacing damaged hard metal erosion shields on the turbine blades, and an array of similar actions for the various other components. This class of inspection and assessment is not subject to further discussion within the scope of this document. Treatment of all of these tests, inspections, and assessments would require many, many volumes of material, even if covered only at the most rudimentary level. Rather, the body of this document deals for the most part with the larger rotating components. These components are not necessarily subject to regular inspection at each turbine-generator overhaul, but are subject to critical analysis and re-inspection based on projections of damage progression into the future, or at intervals prescribed by the manufacturer based on historical information. They are included because the inspections are much more involved, time consuming, and costly, and so are performed on an as-needed basis rather than as part of the routine maintenance. Additionally, failure is typically much more catastrophic than the components covered by the maintenance tests, and immediate replacement is typically not an option because of long lead times and high costs that preclude the possibility in most instances of maintaining spares. Even repairs are typically very long, costly operations.
25.2
NON-destrUctiVe INsPectiON MetHOds
A number of inspection methods are used to assess various turbine and generator components for aw conditions that could lead to failure or other operational issues if left unattended. Without going into great detail, some brief description of the relevant inspection methods is necessary as a background for the component-specic information to follow. Most of the basic inspection methods recognized by the American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT) are employed in some form for one or more of the various components that are subjected to periodic inspection. For those unfamiliar with non-destructive evaluation (NDE), there are a number of basic NDE methods: ultrasonic, eddy current, radiography, and a number of others. Each method has very specic requirements that must be met to become a certied practitioner. In general, there are three levels of qualication for each method, Levels I, II, and III, listed in order of increasing responsibility. For example, a Level I must work under the supervision
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A GUIDE TO SECTION I OF THE ASME BOILER AND PRESSURE VESSEL CODE 25-3
of a Level II or III, can implement an inspection, but cannot interpret results. A Level II can work independently and perform all stages of an inspection, including interpretation. A Level III can additionally develop and write procedures and administer a qualication program, as examples. Each qualication level has specic requirements in terms of education, experience (typically while certied at the next lower level), and training, and each require periodic requalication by examination. Visual Testing (VT) is exactly as it soundsvisually assessing components or assemblies for signs of distress. While this might sound simple and even trivial insofar as recognizing it as a discipline, quality VT is actually one of the more demanding of the various NDE methods because it requires extensive knowledge of operative damage mechanisms and the visual signs that are associated with each. VT obviously requires access to the surface(s) under examination, although direct access is not mandatory. Video probes, mirrors and other devices are often used to view surfaces and assemblies that are otherwise inaccessible. Ultrasonic Testing (UT)UT is the material testing analogy to active sonarping and listen. UT involves the introduction of high frequency sound waves into a component using a transducer that converts electrical voltage into deformation and the opposite. Certain materials possess this piezoelectric property. The voltage is applied as a very short pulse, which causes the material to resonate briey. By coupling the transducer to the surface of a component, the mechanical oscillation of the transducer can be coupled into the component as a short duration sound wave. Similarly, when a sound wave strikes the piezoelectric element of the transducer, a voltage is created. The basic concept of UT is to introduce the sound into the part, where it will reect from a aw back to the transducer and therefore produces a measurable voltage. The propagation mode and direction are controlled via the use of a refracting wedge between the transducer and the component. The sound eld propagation direction is used to dene the direction in the part from which the reection occurs. Because propagation velocity for a specic propagation mode in a given material is constant, the propagation time provides a measure of reector location along the beam, and the voltage of the return signal gives some indication of the signicance of the reectorlarger aws cover more of the eld and therefore in general produce more signicant reection amplitudes. UT can often be effectively used to detect and characterize aws at locations completely otherwise inaccessible, including aws located at hidden internal surfaces of components and aws internal to the material itself, i.e., subsurface aws. There are numerous variations, or techniques, employed in optimizing an inspection for a specic application. These will be discussed to the degree necessary along with the various applications. Magnetic Particle Testing (MT)This is a method for detecting surface connected and near-surface aws at accessible surfaces of ferromagnetic materials. When the material is magnetized, any aw lying in the magnetized material disrupts the eld, forcing the magnetic ux around the aw. This establishes magnetic poles at the aw. The magnetic eld can be developed directly by passing current through the part or indirectly by passing current through a conductor located in close proximity to the part. By then distributing ne particles of ferromagnetic material over the part, the particles are attracted to the eld established by the aw. Color contrast particles are available in different colors to provide the best contrast to the background color of the component. Fluorescent particles are available, typically in liquid suspensions, for use with ultraviolet light to make them more visible. Wet uorescent MT (WFMT) is typically considered to be more sensitive than dry,
color-contrast MT. For subsurface aws, because the leakage eld associated with a aw is relatively weak and localized, detection does not typically extend to a signicant depth into the part. However, MT procedures can be effectively applied for the detection of aws under thin coatings, for example, paint. Liquid Penetrant Testing (PT)This method is limited to the detection of aws that are open to an accessible surface of the component. The principle upon which PT relies is that of capillary action of a liquid. A penetrant liquid is applied to the surface to be inspected and is drawn into surface aws by capillary action. The surface is then cleaned of all remnant penetrant, and a developer is applied to draw the penetrant from the aw to the surface to make it visible. Similar to MT inspection, the liquid penetrants come in color contrast and uorescent, the latter requiring the use of ultraviolet light and also the more sensitive. The penetrant material itself is specically designed via controlled color, surface tension, and viscosity to enhance the process. Cleanliness and surface preparation are very important considerations in PT inspection. Any contaminant that prevents the introduction of the penetrant into the aws can reduce the effectiveness of the inspection or even render it completely useless. Similarly, contaminants that hold penetrant can lead to false calls. Surface cleaning methods that upset the surface, such as abrasive grit blasting and grinding, are generally considered incompatible with PT inspection as the aws can be smeared over or peened closed. Eddy Current Testing (ET)ET inspection is an electromagnetic inspection method that is effective in detecting and characterizing surface and near-surface aws in conductive materials. When current is passed through a coil that is held in close proximity to the surface of a conductive material, the magnetic eld developed by the coil induces current ow, i.e., eddy currents, in the conductive material. So long as all things remain constantmaterial conductivity, magnetic permeability, proximity, material conditionthe characteristic impedance of the coil remains constant. However, any change, including the presence of a discontinuity within the eddy current eld, changes the impedance. Consequently, the impedance can be monitored as a means of assessing the surface for the presence of aws. Alternatively, a secondary pickup coil can be used to measure the eddy currents directly, with the same result. Eddy current inspection provides advantages over other surface inspection methods in that the output can easily be recorded and positionally correlated. It therefore lends itself to automation. ET inspection can also be very sensitive, even to very small, tight cracks that likely might go undetected by other surface inspection methods. There are other inspection methods such as Radiographic Testing (RT), Infrared Thermography (IRT), and others that are not generally used for any of the covered turbine and generator applications, so additional detail on these is not provided.
25.3
UrBiNe DesiGN ANd COmPONeNt T OVerVieW
While it is well beyond the scope of this work to provide signicant detail on turbine and generator design, certain information is required in order to put into the right context the information that is provided on inspection and condition assessment. As is typically the case, certain damage and failure mechanisms, and therefore the means of dealing with them, are related directly to the design or to specic design details. There are many different types of steam turbines, the differences founded in the underlying principles involved with the conversion of thermal energy to work. There are
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condensing and non-condensing turbines, reheat turbines, extraction turbines, induction turbines, and so on. In the power plant, the most commonly found is the condensing turbine, which exhausts steam that is already partially condensed and at a pressure below atmospheric into a condenser. The basic concept is to extract work by allowing the steam to expand through a series of blades that turn the rotor onto which the blades are attached. The blades through which the steam initially passes are very small. Small blades maintain acceptably low stress when exposed to the high pressure steam; yet extract signicant work because of the high pressure even though acting on relatively small areas. To allow the expansion and make most efcient use of each successive row of blades, the blades increase in size along the ow direction. As the pressure drops, greater area is required to extract meaningful work, and the blades can be larger and yet maintain acceptable stress levels because of the lower pressure. Typically, turbines for power generation use have been manufactured in one of three basic types: high pressure (HP) turbines, intermediate pressure (IP) turbines, and low pressure (LP) turbines. In any of these designs, the blades are arranged aroundthe rotor in rows, where each row has duplicate blades within it and the blades increase in size along the steam ow direction through the turbine. In addition to these basic types, there are also hybrids, for example, HP/IP and IP/LP turbines that combine the two into a single unit. In such case, the two are still separated internally in sections, e.g., the HP section and the IP section, but are combined into a single rotor in a single casing. Regardless, the HP turbines will typically be the smallest machines having relatively small blades, IP will be larger machines with larger blades, and the LPs are the largest machines with the largest blades. In terms of pressures and temperatures, the HP sees the highest pressures and temperatures, followed by the IPs which might see equivalent temperature but not equivalent pressure, followed by the LP. The last few blade stages in the LP typically see some level of condensation before the steam exhausts into the condenser. In addition to the various pressure designations for the turbines, they are also characterized by ow direction, single ow or double ow. Whereas HP and IP machines are generally single ow, i.e., having steam ow in only one axial direction, it is more common for LP rotors to have the steam enter at the axial center of the machine and ow equally in both outward directions, i.e., double ow. In the latter double ow (DF) turbines, there is no net axial thrust and therefore no requirement for thrust support provisions in the design. A typical DFLP rotor is shown in Figure 25.1
sitting in the lower half of the casing with the upper half removed. In most cases, the two sections of the hybrid HP/IP and IP/LP machines are opposing ow, but this is not always the case. In terms of the turbine combinations, any combination that can be imagined has probably been built at some time or other. The predominant arrangement in more modern turbines is the tandem compound arrangement in which the machines are all aligned along a single shaft axis and coupled directly one to the next. Such an arrangement might have an HP turbine, followed by an IP turbine, followed by one or more LP turbines, and then the generator. As mentioned above, there are many, many variations on the number of turbines involved in driving the generator and on how they are arranged. There are single turbines driving the generator, up through and including ve turbines (most that could be found) including an HP, IP, and 3 LP turbines. In these arrangements, the same steam ows from the HP, then to the IP, and then to the LP(s). In a reheat unit, the steam returns to the boiler after passing through the HP, where it is reheated before passing through the IP, which for this reason is also commonly called a reheat turbine. Cross compound is another option in which there are two generators driven by separate turbines. A cross compound unit typically has a 3600 RPM, 2-pole generator driven by an HP or an HP/IP, or an HP and an IP, plus an 1800 RPM, 4-pole generator driven by an one or more LP rotors. These still use the same steam and can involve reheat steam to the IP turbines or IP sections. Output for steam driven generators in the US, of which there are on the order of 2500 and 3000 operating units devoted to commercial power generation, ranges for the most part between 50 and 1200 megawatts (MW), although a signicant number of smaller units also can be found, even as small as 2 MW, operating typically at municipal facilities. Regarding the age of the units, not too many steam power plants have been built in the US since the mid- to late 1970s, so the eet is aging, with the majority near or past the half century mark. So, just from these generalized descriptions some of the important considerations that could impact the approach to inspection and life assessment might include: T ypes of turbines comprising the unitHP, IP, HP/IP, LP, etc.; Unit rating and therefore the sizes of the machinesalso with second order affects such as the materials used as impacted by imposed stress, which is related to size; Age of the unit as this dictates the materials that would have been used and certainly the accumulated service hours; Rotational speed of the unit; Pressure and temperature of the steam; Temperatures of the various components; and, State of the steam along the ow, i.e., condensing or not. For the generator, it is a bit simpler. A generator is a generator in terms of the overall design concept. The rotor has sections of the body containing a number of axial slots running the full length of the body and solid sections that form the magnetic poles. Coils are wound into the axially machined slots and around the magnetic poles that are integral to the rotor forging. The coils are held in place by slot wedges, and where the coils exit the slots and wrap around to the opposite side of the pole, large rings are assembled over the end turns to support them. A DC voltage applied to the rotor windings, i.e., the excitation voltage, creates the magnetic eld associated with each magnetic pole. The stator is essentially a large core of ferromagnetic, electrical grade material surrounding the rotor and built up by many thou-
FIG. 25.1 DFLP ROTOR SITTING IN THE BOTTOM HAlfSHEll
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sands of very thin laminations stacked axially and having integral slots running the full length to contain and support the stator coils. Similar to the rotor windings, the stator coils are held in the slots by wedges and connected in the end turn area to form the 3-phase winding. As opposed to the turbines, of which there are many different variety, as described above, all generators take on these same common features. The distinguishing features in the generator are generally linked directly to output, heat generation, heat capacity, and heat dissipation: Unit rating; Stator cooling method, e.g., conventional, gas inner cooled, direct water cooled, etc.; Ventilation gas, typically air or Hydrogen; Ventilation gas pressure (even if having water cooled coils, the rotor and the remainder of the stator are still gas cooled); and, Temperature rating of the insulation materials. Having now established some basic design fundamentals, we can delve deeper into the issues associated with inspection, condition assessment, and remaining life analysis. We will start with turbines and move to generators.
the steam ow direction at the admission side of the rotating stages for optimum performance, form the support members for the rotating blades. The disks can be non-integral to the central shaft, as shown, partially integral meaning that the smaller disks are integral to the shaft and the larger disks are separate, assembled components, or fully integral to the shaft. Assembled disks typically involve an interference (shrink) t. Historically, the smaller HP and IP rotors had integral disks and LP rotors had assembled disks. The evolution from fully non-integral, to partially integral, to fully integral disks essentially followed directly the evolution and availability of larger, quality forgings. Some HP and IP designs feature blades that are directly mounted to the shaft without the presence of disks, per se. Other major components include the bearings that support the rotors and couplings that form the connection interface between adjacent rotors.
25.5
ROtOr FOrGiNG AssessmeNt
25.4
UrBiNe COmPONeNts ReQUiriNG T PeriOdic LiFe AssessmeNt
Figure 25.2 provides a schematic of a turbine rotor cross sec tion.Remember that the stationary components were dened as routine inspection and maintenance components, at least for the purposes of this document, and are therefore not included. Regardless the type of rotor, i.e., HP, IP, or LP, there are many common features rotor to rotor. Generally, there is a central shaft and most often (at least for older vintage rotors) the rotor shaft has a central bore hole. The disks, positioned appropriately along the shaft to provide spaces between for the stationary blades that adjust
Considerable research and development activities have been expended over the years to develop inspection and analysis tools that reduce outage and analysis times and provide realistic assessments of remaining life. For the central shafts, forging production standards have provided the appropriate surface from which to launch relevant inspection protocols. The process that results in a useful rotor forging begins with one of a number of rotor forging specications which have evolved over the years to provide optimum performance under a number of operational conditions. The classic material breakdown for applications in fossil plant rotors is: H P and IP rotors having operating temps up to 1050 FCrMo-V(typically 1Cr-1Mo-1/4V) forgings; LP rotors and discs3.5Ni-Cr-Mo-V; GeneratorsNi-Cr-Mo-V; and, Some very old units may be just Cr-Mo or Ni-Mo-V (1940s) but those would be the exceptions.
FIG. 25.2TURBINE ROTOR (DFLP) CROSS SECTION
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Specications include: A -469 Vacuum-Treated Steel Forgings for Generator Rotors; A-470 Vacuum-Treated Carbon and Alloy Steel Forgings for Turbine Rotors and Shafts (this is a Ni-Cr-Mo-V materials); and, A-471 Vacuum-Treated Alloy Steel Forgings for Turbine Ro tor Disks and Wheels (also Ni-Cr-Mo-V materials). One designation that is referenced occasionally is that of C-grade rotor material. C-Grade is a designation that was applied to 1950s and earlier vintage 1Cr-1Mo-1/4V forgings that were austenitized at 1850F. These forgings were found to exhibit low ductility and notch sensitivity (low fracture toughness). The austenitizing temperature was lowered in the mid-1950s to 1750F which improved ductility and toughness, designated as D-Grade material. Much of the early development activities associated with forging in-service inspection (ISI) was centered on inspection of C-Grade rotors, although the inspections now are recommended for most, if not all, rotors. Older forgings, particularly those made prior to the advent of vacuum degassing practices, were prone to concentrations of impurities and aws near the forging centerline. In the ingot, as the solidication of the molten steel progressed from the outside inward, impurities tended to concentrate within the last to solidify, so toward the ingot center. Then, as the solidied ingot was forged to form the basic shaft shape, these impurities were further condensed to the center section, concentrating them along and around the shaft axis. A simple solution for removal of these impurities and aws was to bore the rotor along the axis. In their nal congurations, turbine and generator rotors are subjected to any number of signicant stress conditions. However, the single most signicant concern in terms of consequences of a failure is a rotor burst. High speed rotation creates signicant hoop stress that is highest at the shaft center and falls off with increasing distance from the center. The central bore hole, in fact, acts as a stress concentration and thereby increases the stress at the bore surface even further. Even so, until recently, when steelmaking practice evolved to the point of making suitably clean large ingots and forgings, the benets associated with aw removal via the presence of a bore overrode the negative impact on stress. Consequently, in the US nearly all large rotors have central bore holes. There are some exceptions, for example some rotors made during World War II, when boring machines were otherwise occupied, and more recently when forging quality improvements have allowed for the elimination of the bore, but, in general, the presence of a bore is relatively standard for the vast majority of the US eet. The raw forging, typically in the form of a series of contiguous cylindrical sections made to encompass the nal rotor shape, is fairly easy to inspect from the outer periphery, and specications evolved accordingly for acceptance inspection of the forging. For the central material, ASTM A-418 is one such inspection stan dard.In the early days of ultrasonic inspection and still in many cases to this day, ultrasonic inspection instruments were (are) calibrated using a series of calibration blocks containing reectors of the size of interest and located at various test distances representative of the volume of interest in component being inspected. For large rotors, this means very large blocks. ASTM A-418 was developed for the specic purpose of eliminating the calibration blocks by using either the bore in the case of a hollow cylinder or the far wall in the case of the solid cylinder as the calibration reector. Theoretically derived relationships between the reector of interest and the reection from a bore or backwall are used to
establish the correct calibration sensitivity based on the bore or backwall reection. Considering the complex conguration of the nal machined rotor, however, ISI is not so easily accomplished from the outer periphery. This is true regardless whether the subject rotor is a turbine rotor, which has the disk congurations at least and possibly assembled disks covering the OD, or a generator rotor that has the full-length integral winding slots cut into the body. However, the presence of the central bore hole provides a convenient, typically uniform surface from which to inspect the central material for potentially detriment aws. Failures that initiate at the rotor bore surface, where in-service stresses are highest, propagate by low cycle fatigue or high temperature creep. Failures that initiate subsurface typically initiate by link-up and growth of inherent discontinuities remnant from the steelmaking process, but then propagate by low cycle fatigue. Because the predominant stress is a hoop stress, i.e., tangential, the aw of main concern is in a radialaxial orientation, normal to the primary stress direction. The study of linear elastic fracture mechanics tells us that a surface aw of axial length (L) by radial depth (a) has a crack tip stress intensity that is the same as a subsurface aw that is the same length but twice the radial dimension, i.e., L 2a, if acted on by the same stress. This factor, when combined with the fact that the stress is highest at the bore surface, means that the bore surface aw is of major concern. However, the subsurface aws, particularly those in close proximity to each other such that linkup is possible, cannot be discounted. Ultrasonic inspection of the rotor material from the bore surface, a practice that has become known generically as boresonic inspection, has become standard throughout the industry. Typically, the inspection involves the introduction of ultrasonic waves in different directions relative to the bore surface to look for aws at different orientations. Because of the criticality of surface and nearsurface aws, located where stresses are highest, the inspection is typically designed to concentrate on the rst few inches of material radially outward from the bore. In most applications of ultrasound, there is a limitation on the ability to detect and assess aws located at and very near the test surface, i.e., the surface from which the ultrasonic waves are launched, in this case the bore surface. This is typically a very shallow distance, measured in hundredths of an inch, but in this case it is, nonetheless, the most important material in terms of aw criticality. Consequently, boresonic inspection is supplemented using reliable surface inspection methods, generally MT or ET inspection. Boresonic systems currently in use are all fully automated, featuring motorized, external scanning mechanisms that transport the transducers systematically through the bore via a probe head and series of drive rods to accomplish complete and reliable coverage of the material. Figure 25.3 presents a photograph of a turbine rotor inspection underway. The scan is accomplished either in a raster mode in which the transducers undergo alternating clockwise and counterclockwise 360 rotations with an axial index between, or in a continuous helical scan. The raster mode allows the transducers to be hard wired to the external instrumentation and data acquisition system, while the helical scan mode requires the use of slip rings in the circuit to prevent continuous twisting of the wires. The automated systems contain motion pickups to record probe head position along with the inspection data. This enables the generation of positionally-correlated data images for analysis purposes. More information on data analysis is presented later. Boresonic inspection is supplemented with a surface inspection to cover the zone in which the UT is ineffective. The surface inspection is typically either MT or ET. Bore MT is conducted
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A GUIDE TO SECTION I OF THE ASME BOILER AND PRESSURE VESSEL CODE 25-
FIG. 25.3BORESONIC dRIVE ATTACHEd TO AN HP/IP ROTOR
using a central conductor and therefore indirect magnetization. Theinspection relies on residual magnetization, i.e., the magne tizing eld is applied and then released while the magnetic particle suspension is applied. The inspection utilizes color-contrast particles in a wet suspension. Viewing of the surface is performed using an optical borescope or miniature camera in combination with a high intensity light source. Bore ET inspection is conducted using a more or less conventional eddy current probe that is scanned over the entirety of the bore surface. For rotor bore surface inspection, MT and ET each provide certain advantages and disadvantages. By virtue of the fact that ET is an electronic inspection method, the data can be digitally recorded for archival retention purposes. The inspection method requires that the ET probe is scanned over the surface, thereby making the inspection compatible with the boresonic scanning. In fact, the probe is typically included in the boresonic probe head such that the data can be acquired concurrently with the boresonic inspection data, which results in a real time savings. This advantage notwithstanding, the main advantage of ET owes directly to the fact that the data is acquired along with the digitally stored positional information and so the coordinate reference system is consistent with that used for the boresonic inspection. In the analysis phase of a bore evaluation, the data is combined based on proximity of indications and the local stress level. Closely proximate indications in regions of high stress must be considered as a single aw, the boundary of which encompasses the entire volume containing the individual aws. The logic is that, if the ligament stress is high enough, the individual aws will soon link. Even small errors in aw location therefore can lead to signicant errors in combining the individual indications into an equivalent aw size. And the error can go either wayoverly conservative by combining individual aws that have wider separation or treating individually aws that should be combined. The primary deterrent to bore MT inspection is that the inspection must be conducted using some visual device, such as an optical borescope or camera, to view the surface. Unfortunately, when using such devices, there is no effective way to provide the same positional precision as can be attained when using precision optical encoders in conjunction with automated positional systems. And the fact that the ET inspection can be conducted concurrently with the UT means that both sets of data have exactly the same position reference datum. However, the advantage of the bore MT is that it provides the ability to see the indication, a capability
that is still very attractive to many. A typical MT indication associated with an axial bore crack is shown in Figure 25.4. Likely the best of both worlds is the use of ET as the primary inspection, with full digital data acquisition and storage concurrently with the UT inspections, followed by bore MT if/as necessary to corroborate ET indications. Bore surface preparation typically involves honing the bore to provide a smooth, uniform surface condition, void of any conditions that would upset the transducers or otherwise interfere with effective coupling of the ultrasound into and out of the rotor material. In manual UT, the operator has full control of the transducer and can compensate for minor surface irregularities by over-scanning and feel. But in automated UT, the transducers traverse the surface one time and with limited capability to compensate for irregularities. Consequently, the surface must be smooth and regular. Most bore inspection specications require that all oxide and contaminants are removed and that a 63--inch nish is provided for the inspection. This surface nish is critical for the proper contact of the UT probes and equally important for reliable detection and characterization of surface MT indications. Rotors typically have shrink-t assembled end plugs that must be removed to access the bore, and this operation is typically done by machining the plugs. For bores that have a uniform bore diameter, typically only a single plug is removed and the inspection is conducted from one end. Often, however, rotors may have steps, transitions, and even bottle bores. These features likely were put in at the time of manufacture to remove material containing detected aws. Depending upon the details of the bore conguration, access from both ends of the bore for honing and delivery of the inspection systems may be required, in which case both end plugs must be removed. Data analysis, for the most part, is now a largely automated pro cess that converts the ultrasonic data into aw tables that include the location of each aw centroid, expressed in most cases in terms of radial depth, R (inches), axial position, Z (inches), and circumferential position, (degrees), as well as dimension in each direction as well. At one time, sizing of indications was based solely on the amplitude of the ultrasonic response using area/amplitude correlations based on the response from at bottom holes (FBHs) in calibration blocks. However, this sizing method has long been recognized as inaccurate because response amplitude is impacted by
FIG. 25.4IMAGE Of A BORE AXIAl CRACK IN AN HP TURBINE ROTOR
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many variables in addition to aw size. Flaw orientation relative to the beam direction, aw shape, morphology, and composition can all impact the reection amplitude, not to mention material structure and its affect in terms of attenuating the sound. Consequently, without a priori knowledge on all of these other variables, size analysis based on amplitude alone is prone to signicant error. And any such errors are always non-conservative; that is, all of the variables that impact amplitude tend to lower the amplitude and therefore make the aws appear smaller than actual. This is not meant to imply that early practitioners did not recognize and account for these errors. To the contrary, signicant correction and safety factors were applied to account for the potential sizing error. Unfortunately, the aw sizing processes and algorithms based on response amplitude simply resulted in signicant uncertainty. As a direct result, extremely conservative approaches were utilized to make it absolutely certain that failures would not occur. For many years, beginning in the early 1980s, related R&D efforts concentrated on the removal of conservatism without assuming unacceptable risk of failure. More recently, aw sizing algorithms based on dynamic echo response, hit envelope, tip diffractions, and amplitude drop have evolved and have improved the accuracy of the aw sizing results, and therefore reduction in the safety factors that must be applied. Ultrasonic images like those shown in Figure 25.5 are also reviewed as part of the data analysis process and to perform spot checks on selected aws from the aw tables. As stated earlier, the primary concern for the central material in a rotor forging is low cycle fatigue. The stress cycle is related to start/stop operation and to a much lesser degree to load swings. When a unit is brought up to speed and then put on line, the turbine rotors heat up and the rotational (centrifugal) stress increases with increasing rotational speed. The startup procedure can have a signicant impact on peak stress, as the peak thermal stress occurs during the startup transient conditions and then is signicantly reduced once temperatures equilibrate and stead state operating conditions have been reached. It is therefore good practice to control
the startup rate to assure that the peak thermal stress is not present concurrent with the peak mechanical stress. This typically means slow ramp up to full speed or even hold points at certain speeds to allow the rotors to soak at the temperatures to equilibrate there before continuing. Material properties are also impacted by temperature, and in general, higher temperature means more ductility and less susceptibility to brittle fracture. These warming practices also allow for the materials to pass the brittle-to-ductile transition temperature range before reaching peak stress. For the generator, temperatures are much lower and thermal stresses are typically not even a consideration. Once at speed and fully on line and at operational temperature, the hoop stresses that predominate in the shaft central material remain effectively constant until the unit shuts down. Minor stress cycles accumulate with major load, and therefore thermal swings, but these account for only a small fraction of the accumulated damage and life consumption. By far, cold starts account for the majority of life consumption, followed by hot starts for which the thermal stresses are not additive, followed by major load swings. Engineering analysis of indications detected via the rotor bore inspections is performed using component-specic analysis programs. While there are other analysis programs used by various analysis providers, the SAFER (Stress And Fracture Evaluation of Rotors) computer analysis program that was developed by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) sets the standard and will be presented here in that regard. SAFER provides two distinct analysis options, deterministic and probabilistic. In a deterministic analysis, single-value input parameters are used. These are typically worst case values to provide the most conservative solution, which is in the form of a gono-go answer. That is, the future duty cycle is input, along with conservative parameters in the form of aw sizes, material properties, and stresses, and a conservative estimate of remaining life is determined. Alternatively, the SAFER program provides the means to perform probabilistic analyses. Under this analysis option, all input parameters are input as statistical distributions, and a Monte Carlo simulation is exercised to deter-
FIG. 25.5UlTRASONIC IMAGES (SECTIONAl VIEWS) USEd IN dATA ANAlYSIS, IN THIS CASE REpRESENTATIVE Of A CAlIBRATION BlOCK CONTAINING MACHINEd REflECTORS
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mine the probability of failure in a specied operational interval. This analysis removes a great deal of conservatism and therefore is more realistic. However, in order to take advantage of the lowered conservatism, the owner must be willing to deal with the output in the form of a probability of failure in a specied operational life. The owner must decide the probability of failure that represents an acceptable risk. Typically, operators consider a 0.1% probability of failure over the intended operational period until the next scheduled inspection to be acceptable, and for Nuclear units the acceptable risk is more typically 0.01% (1 in 10,000). But the comfort level is something that only the owner/operator can dene based on their tolerance for risk. In reality, there is risk associated with operation of a unit regardless the assessment that is conducted. The probabilistic approach merely quanties this risk. The analysis process involves three primary tasks. The rst is a transient thermal-elastic nite element stress analysis to determine the distribution of stress and temperature in the near-bore region of the rotor. It is important to evaluate the typical cold start up condition(s) for that specic unit to ensure that these factors are included in the analysis. Information required to perform the transient stress analysis of a rotor is listed below. D escription of the rotor periphery as a function of axial location; Description of the rotor bore geometry as a function of axial location; Blade weights and mass center location or rim loads for each stage; Inlet and outlet steam temperature and pressure versus time during a typical startup; RPM versus time during a typical startup; Heat balance diagram for the unit at full load; Service history of the unit (online time and starts); and, Rotor material datafracture appearance transition tempera ture (brittle/ductile temperature), composition, yield strength, fracture toughness. This is followed by the linkup analyses of the NDE data based upon the proximity of indications and local stress and temperature. This linkup analysis utilizes the spatial variation of stress and temperature in the rotor to predict whether or not neighboring indications should be combined and considered as larger indications. The third task is to perform the critical crack size evaluation. This is either done deterministically using specic values for the various input parameters or probabilistically using statistical ranges derived from historical databases. Where the deterministic approach is exercised here as the third step, it can be followed by the probabilistic analysis if additional rigor is considered justiable, or the analysis can proceed directly to the probabilistic analysis, bypassing the deterministic. In this probabilistic treatment, the values of stress, initial crack size, fatigue crack growth rate, creep crack growth rate, and fracture toughness are treated as random variables. If available, rotor-specic material properties and their associated distributions are used. In those instances where rotorspecic materials property data is not available, literature values available for the same class of material in similar rotors are used. It is recognized, however, that the distributions for the various database properties are relatively broad, i.e., having relatively large standard deviations. This factor alone can have a dramatic impact on the outcome. If this level of analysis falls short of indicating the desired remaining operating life with acceptable risk, then the next level of analysis would require rotor-specic material properties, with the hope that the properties are determined to be toward the
better side of the distribution rather than toward the worse side. This means that material samples must be removed from the rotor for testing purposes. Sample removal and testing is discussed later. Another consideration in assessing certain rotors is that of damage by high temperature creep. As with other topics mentioned at various points within this document, the purpose is not to describe creep in great detail, but simply to provide sufcient information to enable a reasonable understanding of its importance. Creep occurs essentially by atomic level diffusion of defects in the atomic structure. When subjected to elevated temperature above about 850F and sufcient stress, vacancies and dislocations migrate within the atomic structure until they reach a grain boundary, at which point they are pinned. As the process proceeds, additional aws continue to accumulate at the grain boundaries, eventually forming microscopic voids or cavities. At rst, these will be distributed relatively randomly, but eventually, as the process continues, they become oriented, i.e., more prevalent along grain boundaries that are normal or near-normal to the principal stress direction. Ultimately, the size and density of cavities becomes sufcient that they begin to link to form micro-cracks. These eventually coalesce to form macro-cracks. Once cracks are formed, they can propagate by creep or fatigue, or a combination creep-fatigue mechanism. In its initial stages, creep is consider more a materials properties degredation mechanism in that the properties begin to degrade before any measurable aw can be detected. However, once cracks are formed, creep is a double edged sword because not only is a fracture mechanics aw present, but it is growing into material around the crack that is likely also degraded via creep cavities and/or micro-cracks. Once creep reaches this point of progression, failure is typically not far behind. Temper embrittlement is yet another damage mechanism that can be experienced in higher temperature rotors. Whereas creep involves diffusion of atomic level vacancies and dislocations, temper embrittlement involves diffusion of certain impurity elements (i.e., phosphorus, tin, lead, sulfur, arsenic, etc.) to prior austenite grain boundaries. Here they provide easy fracture paths, lowering fracture toughness and increasing the fracture appearance transition temperature (FATT) accordingly. Temper embrittlement typically occurs in the temperature range of 600F - 1000F, although degree of embrittlement is a function of exposure temperature within this range, with the greatest effects occurring in the range of 600F to 750F, targeting the back ends of the HP and middle of the IP sections. It seems more than logical that increased content of tramp elements would increase susceptibility to temper embrittlement and quantitative chemical analysis can be used to determine the level of tramp elements in the material. However, no correlation to composition with which to predict susceptibility is known to exist. Certain HP and IP rotors, or at least regions within these rotors, operate within the temperature ranges at which creep and/or temper embrittlement are potential considerations. In the analysis of the rotor forgings, in fact, even in the absence of detectable aws, these mechanisms may become life-limiting. Every NDE method and technique, as implemented for a specic application, has an inherent detection threshold beneath which aws will not be detected. As the properties degrade, at some point the aw size needed to grow to failure within some dened operating interval can fall below the detection threshold of the inspection, at which point the detection threshold aw must be considered as the life-limiting case. Said another way, if a aw is present just below the detection threshold, and if that aw is larger than that needed to grow to
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failure within the next duty cycle, then the properties in combination with a near-detectable aw become life-limiting and the reinspection interval must be shortened to preclude risk of a failure.
25.6
TUrBiNe DisKs
For the purposes of this discussion, the disk is divided into three parts, the hub, which is the relatively large, heavy body, central part including the bore and keyway, the thinner web section that extends outward from the hub, and the rim section where the blades are attached. See Figure 25.6. Turbine disks are generally susceptible to intergranular stress corrosion cracking (IGSCC) and are particularly sensitive when operating in unsuitable steam chemistry. Additionally, and potentially as important as or even more important than operating conditions are the conditions present during shutdown. While cracking can occur essentially anywhere on the disks, certain areas are more prone to damage than are other areas. Highly susceptible areas include those having higher stresses combined with either high temperature exposure or geometric considerations that tend to trap contaminants that contribute to the stress corrosion damage progression. This typically means that the blade attachment regions are prone regardless. All operate at elevate stress because
FIG. 25.6SHRUNK-ON dISK ANd INSpECTION lOCATIONS
of the stress concentrations associated with attachment geometries. Some operate at temperatures sufcient to cause long term thermal damage, and others operate in regions where steam conditions are suitable for the formation of stress corrosion damage. The other region that is considered highly susceptible to cracking is the bore/keyway region of shrink-assembled disks. The designs of shrunk-on disks typically involve some form of an axial key at the shrink-t interface to prevent the disk from rotating relative to the shaft under upset loading conditions. While the entire disk is susceptible to IGSCC, the bore is more prone than most other surfaces because the nominal rotational stress is highest at the bore. Additionally, because of the stress concentration effect of the keyway, the keyway surfaces are even more prone to cracking. Another signicant factor that can impact IGSCC in the bore and keyway regions owes to the fact that there is no steam ow in these regions. While other surfaces exposed to steam ow can be cleaned of contaminants by the ow, the bore and keyway surfaces are not ushed in any way. Consequently, once contaminants are introduced into these regions, the IGSCC process continues unabated. Disks operating at and beyond the phase transformation zone (PTZ), i.e., where the steam is transforming from dry to wet and beyond, are particularly prone to IGSCC. For many years, IGSCC was known as an operative damage mechanism and was considered to be a function only of steam chemistry and the local operating conditions, i.e., those conditions present during operation in and beyond the PTZ. More recently, the process has been better dened and it now appears that the initiation occurs during unprotected shutdowns [1]. The droplets and liquid lms whichform on the blade/disk surfaces in and beyond the PTZ during operation do not initially create damage because neither contains any oxygen, even in units with hundreds of ppb of oxygen in the steam. However, in addition to the liquids, deposits of contaminants such as chlorides can form during operation. During shutdown these deposits are still present, and if there is no protection the deposits absorb moisture. Unlike the moisture present during operation, however, this moisture does contain oxygen, and when present in combination with the deposits of contaminants remaining from operation, become highly acidic. This environment rst breaks down the passivity on the PTZ surfaces, which leads to pitting. Repetition of the unprotected shutdown situation eventually leads to a critical pit size which, during operation in the concentrated liquid lm, will grow into a micro-crack. This micro-crack can then grow (propagate) as a corrosion-fatigue or stress corrosion crack only during operation because this is the only time that the stress exists. However, initiation stems directly from unprotected periods of shutdown. If the turbine and the PTZ are protected with dehumidied air, starting day one and continuing during subsequent period of shutdown, the deposits remain dry and therefore do not cause passivity breakdown and pitting. As a consequence there are no initiating centers for corrosion fatigue and stress corrosion cracking. Pulling all of these factors together, it means that the most susceptible disks are the last downstream in the steam ow, typically the last couple stages in the LP rotors. These disks are also the largest on the rotors and therefore the ones that can do the most damage in the event of a catastrophic failure, which can occur if bore/keyway cracks propagate to a critical size. A failed disk is shown in the photograph of Figure 25.7. Turning now to the inspection of shrunk-on disk bores and keyways because the cracks occur at inaccessible surfaces, UT is the only available inspection option unless the rotor is de-stacked, i.e., the disks removed to enable implementation of surface inspec-
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FIG. 25.7 FAIlEd TURBINE dISK
tion methods. Because of the cost associated with de-stack and re-stack, which may even necessitate high speed balancing of the rotor, inspection with the disks remaining on the shaft is by far the preferred approach. However, in many cases, the geometries of the surfaces available for transducer placement often detract from the effectiveness of the inspection. Stresses at the bore and keyway are tangential; consequently, cracks tend to grow in a radial/axial plane. In UT, optimum detection for cracks at the opposite surface of a component occurs when the beam is in a plane normal to the corner created by the intersection of the crack with the component surface. Additionally, the best approach angle within this plane is within the range of 30 to 60 and best at 45 relative to the corner. For this application, the beam is therefore optimum when maintained in a radial/circumferential plane and at 45 relative to the ID surface. At the outer extremes of the hub, some designs have relatively short cylindrical sections that make it easy to accomplish this optimum beam propagation direction, but only over the lengths of the cylindrical sections. Looking back to Figure 25.6, it certainly goes without saying that a beam cannot be maintained in a radial/circumferential plane under the web section, and other geometry can impact the effectiveness of the inspection as well. This is not to say that adequate coverage cannot be achieved. However, going back several years when ultrasonic data was presented as a time/amplitude trace on a CRT (or more recently, digital) screen and when the ultrasonic beam angle was xed to a single value for a particular transducer/wedge combination, achieving high reliability was very difcult and tedious. On one particular manufacturers designs, the web sections are continually changing contoured radii; consequently, to best cover the entirety of the bore, a series of compound curved wedges had to be used, and each applied only to a single location on the web. The advent of computer based data acquisition and analysis systems and the use of linear phased array ultrasonic technology have resulted in improved aw detection and sizing in general, and particularly so for this difcult application. Since this is the rst mention of phased array UT, some brief description of the technology will be provided before proceeding on the disk inspection application. An ultrasonic phased array system includes an array transducer, which contains multiple, precisely positioned transducer elements
(the array), an electronic pulser/receiver unit that provides independent pulsers and receivers for each of the transducer elements, and timing circuitry that controls the sequence and the timing intervals (phasing) at which the elements is pulsed. This, as opposed to the single element of conventional pulse-echo transducers or the transmit/receive pair of conventional pitchcatch search units. If some or all of the elements are pulsed sequentially with a small, yet precise, timing delays imposed one to the next, certain beam characteristics can be varied, and in fact controlled. A linear array consists of a number of linear elements, arranged either in a single row or in a two-dimensional array pattern, while an annular array is an arrangement of concentric ring elements. The linear phased array (LPA) technology provides the abilities to steer the ultrasonic beam to angles other than straight in front of and normal to the transducer element and to focus the beam at some point along the beam axis. The easiest way to understand how this works is to view it from a point in front of the transducer but not on the axis normal to the transducer face. The propagation time required for each beam to get to that point from each of the transducer elements can then be calculated based purely on geometric considerations since the propagation velocity and the precisely dened element locations within the array transducer are known. So, if the elements of the array transducer are pulsed at very precise timing intervals based on the different propagation times such that all of the beams reach the dened point at the same time, the beam has effectively been steered in that direction and focused at the dened position along the beam direction. All of the beams are in phase and additive at this dened point, but out of phase and destructively interfering elsewhere. The timing sequence and delays required to do this are collectively called the phasing or focal law. By picking another beam direction and/or another point along beam direction, a similar calculation can be made, thereby creating a new focal law. Because these operations are all performed very quickly and efciently in the control computer, a series of focal laws can be implemented to sweep the beam through a series of angles at a xed increment, for example, 30 through 60 at 1 increment, very rapidly. As described above, the linear array is used primarily to inuence beam direction, electronically focus the beam, and/or a combination of the two. A true spatial representation of the linear array data requires that the data be presented in polar coordinates rather than the Cartesian plots that are used to present x/y raster scanned data. The amplitudes at all digitization points along each of the waveforms are typically presented in colors, thereby creating a 2dimensional view in the plane of the swept beam. These plots have become known as sectorial, or S-scans, because they represent sectors of the cross section of the component in the plane of the beam. A typical S-scan image is provided in Figure 25.8. In this case, the scan is of a calibration block containing a stack of side drilled holes, with a cartoon of the block shown at the left and the S-scan image to the right to show the relationship between the component and the resulting S-scan image. This is the same technology that has been used in the medical eld for many years, babys rst fetal picture being a prime exam ple. However, because of the extreme amounts of data needed to create such an image, instruments required very high speed pro cessors, which made them very expensive and limited their use to medical applications. Advances in processor speed and the corresponding reduction in processor cost have now permitted the entry of array systems into industrial applications over the past ten years or so.
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FIG. 25.8UlTRASONIC lINEAR ARRAY S-SCAN IMAGE Of A CAlIBRATION BlOCK CONTAINING A SERIES Of SIdE-dRIllEd HOlES
Now that the inspection technology has been described, attention can return to the application at hand, inspection of turbine disk bore and keyway surfaces. Quality inspections are performed using some form of scanning device to assure complete and accurate coverage of disk. Some scanners are more-or-less crawling devices that somehow traverse the OD of the disk to transport the transducer(s) over the various surfaces. More often than not, however, the scan is accomplished using a xed transducer positioning device and by then rolling the rotor to scan the transducer around the periphery. A scanner of this type is shown in Figure 25.9. Positioning devices used in this application can be relatively simple, more-or-less a transducer on a stick. However, such devices are often not very effective in the tight connes between blade stages
and proper adjustment of the transducer can be difcult to achieve. Consequently, the more prevalent design incorporates motor driven motion axes to properly position the transducer on the surface. The scanner shown in Figure 25.9 has motor driven raise and lower of the scan arm, extension along the scan arm, and two rotational axes at the transducer. Once the transducer is properly positioned, the rotor rotation is typically provided by power rolls or a large lathe. Rotational position is acquired along with the ultrasonic data such that the data can be positionally correlated via an optical encoder or similar device. Full automation, digitally recorded data, and full imaging capabilities have signicantly enhanced the inspection of turbine disks, reduced inspection and analysis time, and improved the accuracy and reliability of the inspections. And the introduction of the LPA technology described above has further enhanced the process. Figure 25.10 provides an S-scan LPA image of cracked disk superimposed over a dimensionally accurate drawing of the disk. In this case, the crack extends along the top of the keyway and axially along the bore of the disk beyond the end of the keyway. The particular S-scan image was acquired with the transducer on one face of the disk web. The image clearly shows the nominal responses from the disk bore and the top of the keyway, plus the cracks extending from the keyway. Because the data provides an accurate dimensional representation of the various reectors, it is possible not only to detect the presence of a crack, but also to measure its depth, a very important consideration in the stress and fracture remaining life evaluation to follow. For the remaining life assessment, the geometries of the hub and web sections of shrunk-on turbine disks vary too radically one to the next to enable development of any generic life assessment computer program that would cover any appreciable portion of the eet. Consequently, stress and fracture evaluations are typically performed on a case-by-case basis using general purpose nite element analysis programs such as ANSYS.
FIG. 25.9TYpICAl TRANSdUCER pOSITIONING dEVICE fOR TURBINE dISK INSpECTION
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25.7
isK Rim BlAde AttAcHmeNt D DOVetAils
FIG. 25.10 LINEAR pHASEd ARRAY S-SCAN IMAGE Of CRACKEd dISK KEYWAY
Turbine blades can be attached directly to the rotor shaft or to the rim of the disks, whether integral or shrunk-t. This photograph of Figure 25.11 shows an example of one blade attachment conguration referred to as a r tree or Christmas tree dovetail for obvious reasons. Blades attached at the rim of a disk of the r tree dovetail attachment design are typically one of two basic designs, an axial entry blade attachment as shown in Figure 25.11, or a straddle-mount or tangential entry blade attachment. In the axial entry design, the r tree conguration is machines in a repeating pattern axially through the rim of the disk, thereby forming a series of female slots around the periphery of the rim to accept the blades. In this conguration, the slots and mating blades can be straight through the disk rim, straight but at an angle, or curved in passing through. The general conguration of the r tree is fully exposed on both faces of the disk rim, as in Figure 25.11. In the straddle-mount or tangential-entry design, the r tree geometry is machine fully around the periphery of the disk, the disk forming the male side of the attachment dovetail. The blades have the mating r tree dovetail conguration machined up and into each blade base such that when full engaged on the disk rim, the blades straddle the rim of the disk. To permit loading of the blades onto the rim, the dovetail hooks are removed from the rim for a short segment of the rim sufcient to allow one blade to be dropped over the loading slot and then moved circumferentially to engage the dovetail. In this design, the blades are actually referred to as buckets, and the loading slot on the rim is called the loading notch. The buckets are loaded sequentially by dropping them over the notch and then sliding them tangentially until the stage is full and only the notch remains. A notch block is then pinned between the buckets located on either side of the notch to keep the buckets in place and prevent tangential motion during service. Figure 25.12 provides a photograph of a 3-hook straddle-mount dovetail attachment. Loaded blades can be seen to the extreme left and right of the photograph, with the blades between removed to expose the r tree dovetail geometry and the loading notch.
FIG. 25.11TYpICAl fIR-TREE BlAdE ATTACHMENT
FIG. 25.12STRAddlE-MOUNT, TANGENTIAl ENTRY BUCKETS ANd RIM WITH lOAdING NOTCH SHOWING
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There are other designs as well, for example a tangential entry design in which the dovetail on the disk rim forms the female side of the attachment and the male side is on the blades. However, these are found more prevalently on relatively small industrial turbines and infrequently in the turbines built for commercial power generation. The vast majority of the US eet involves one of the two designs presented above at lease on most, if not all stages. Within the majority of the US eet, there is one exception found frequently on LP rotors. That is, on the last stage and sometimes last two stages of certain LP rotors, a pinned blade attachment conguration has been used extensively and is still in use. In this design, a series of side-by-side, parallel slots are machined fully around the disk rim. The slots are initially narrow at the slot bottoms with transitions at different radial positions to form wider slots and narrower plates toward the OD of the arrangement. The buckets have matching ngers extending from beneath the bucket foil and into the rim slots. Holes are then drilled axially through the disk rim plate ngers, and the bucket ngers and pins are inserted to hold the buckets in place. Exceptions also typically exist on the rst few stages of HP sections, all of the HP stages in some designs, and typically, some of the entry stages in reheat IP sections. This encompasses the smaller blades, located at much smaller diameters, where disk, per se, is therefore not needed. In such case, the blades are typically attached directly to the shaft proper without the radial extension of a disk. In such case, the shaft typically provides the female geometry of the attachment and the blade has the male attachment geometry. Designs encountered routinely included T-slots and r tree slots directly into the shaft OD. To this point, the only damage mechanisms presented for the disks have been related to stress corrosion cracking, and it is clear that this mechanism is important only for the last few stages of the LP that operate in or past the PTZ. This mechanism was discussed earlier primarily in the context of the bore/keyway cracking. However, the same considerations apply equally for the blade attachments for the stages that operate in or past the PTZ. Cracking typically occurs in the inside radii at the corners of the r tree dovetail hooks on the disk side of the attachment and propagate either across the r tree or more radially across the hook. Such cracking occurs in both the axial-entry and straddle-mount designs in the appropriate wet stages. Figure 25.13 shows a cracked dovetail in a typical tangential-entry, straddle-mount blade attachment dovetail.
FIG. 25.13WET flUORESCENT MT INdICATION Of A CRACKEd dOVETAIl HOOK
Cracking also occurs in the nger-pin design, in which cracks can occur at the bottoms of the slots in the disks, around the pin holes, and at the geometry transitions along the sides of the slots. But corrosion-related cracking mechanisms are not the only ones possible in the blade attachment dovetails. Unfortunately, creep and temper embrittlement are not only possible in the rotor body but also in the high temperature blade attachments. Consequently, inspection and condition assessment are not limited to just the last few stages in the LP rotor blade attachments. In the rst few stages of the HP and also the rst few stages of reheat IP turbines, temperatures are adequate to develop high temperature creep and/or temper embrittlement, particularly given the accumulated service hours that the majority of the eet has now experienced. Each of these variations on blade attachment conguration presents its own inspection challenges. Starting with the tangentialentry, straddle-mount design, this inspection is typically not too difcult if implemented using the LPA UT inspection technology. Because each hook represents a potential crack initiation site, each must be inspected independently. The inspection is performed by introducing a UT beam from the side of the disk immediately beneath the blade. The beam is directed up into and across the dovetail to the opposite side at the appropriate beam angle to address a given hook directly. Prior to the availability of linear phased array UT, this meant that an assessment had to be performed to dene the geometry of the underlying dovetail conguration and then carefully select the appropriate xed beam angle and transducer position on the side of the disk for optimum interrogation of each hook. From there, implementation was merely a matter of implementing each of the inspections from each side of the disknot a terribly challenging undertaking, but certainly tedious and timeconsuming. With the introduction of the LPA technology, this inspection can now be performed very quickly and effectively, and with much greater reliability and sizing precision. Transducer placement is essentially the same as for the xed angle inspectionson the side of the disk beneath the blade attachment, with the beams directed up and into the dovetail hooks on the opposite side of the attachment. However, the ability to sweep the beam makes it much easier to infer the geometry and to establish the most effective transducer position. The real time imaging capability of the LPA technology makes it possible to perform some manual scanning to dene the most optimum transducer location along the face of the available test surface, and the resulting image provides instant recognition of the associated dovetail geometry to the trained operator. Additionally, each side of each disk dovetail can be accomplished in a single scan pass around the disk owing to the beam sweeping capabilities of LPA, which results in signicant time savings. Figure 25.14 provides an LPA S-scan image of a typical tangentialentry, straddle-mount dovetail design having signicant cracking. The image is superimposed over a sketch of the geometry to assist with recognition of the various reectors. In this image, the more signicant reections are from the tapered geometry of the hooks, while the numbered smaller reections are from the cracks, which are located on geometric features of the dovetail that produce no reections unless cracks are present. Blade attachments that enter the blades directly into contoured slots in the shaft, i.e., smaller blades stages in the HP and IP sections, are inspected using the same protocol except that the ultrasound enters from available surfaces on the shaft between the blade stages and is directed inward toward the dovetails. This inspection is made difcult only by the limited space for transducer placement and manipulation between the stages. Often, special transducers
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FIG. 25.14TYpICAl LPA S-SCAN IMAGE Of CRACKEd dOVETAIlS
and transducer wedges are required to enable inspection from very limited and often complex congured surfaces. Higher frequencies are typically used to increase resolution, keeping in mind that the entirety of the geometry of the attachment is downsized signicantly relative to the typical straddle-mount designs, and the ultrasonic propagation distances are reduced, as well. Inspection of the exposed faces of the axial-entry design can be accomplished using appropriate surface inspection methods, primarily MT or ET. However, cracks are not always present only at the exposed faces, but can initiate away from these surfaces where detection is much more difcult and requires subsurface inspection methods and techniques. Ultrasonic inspection has become the standard inspection approach for this application. However, axialentry blade attachment dovetails present a signicant inspection challenge, even when utilizing the LPA technology. The inspection is complicated by the fact that the geometries of available test surfaces for transducer placement can and do vary signicantly from rotor to rotor and from one disk to the next on the same rotor. In general, for this design the disk web is relatively thin and the disk rim section typically is much wider. From a design viewpoint, the idea is to reduce the mass acting on the hub to the degree possible to minimize bore/keyway stresses as possible, yet to provide sufcient web to adequately support the rim and blade loads. Additionally, where stages involve relatively small, low mass blades, a single disk can support multiple blade stages, in fact up to three per disk. Going all the way back to Figure 25.6, which depicts a disk associated with axial-entry blade attachments, this particular disk would support two stages of blades and has tapered sides beneath the disk rim section. Other congurations might involve radii on the underside of the rim or an elevated rim with straight, parallel sides for some distance beneath the rim before the contour to the relatively thin web starts. The best ultrasonic approach for these attachments involves introduction of the beam from the underside and/or sides of the rim section, with the beam looking up through the rim at the dovetail. This involves any number of contoured wedges needed to match the many different surface contours that might be encountered during
an inspection. And the inspection may involve variable axial angulation of the beam or circumferential angulation, or some of each, depending on the exact disk conguration and the crack location and orientation. Moreover, even after having addressed the various test surface congurations and optimum beam angulation requirements, the intermittent nature of the blade dovetails as they pass the transducer during a rotational scan means that the data analysis must be performed on a pattern recognition basis. And, there is a question related to the number of beam angles required to cover the geometry properly. Going back to the days of xed angle UT, the possible combinations of beam angle and transducer location were almost endless, meaning many transducer/wedge combinations and many scans resulting directly in signicant inspection duration. By comparison, for the tangential-entry, straddle-mount design, the geometry is constant within the circumferential scan and limited to two or three xed locations to interrogate, i.e., two or three hooks. In the axial-entry design, however, the geometry changes in a direction essentially normal to the circumferential scan direction, so it is difcult to dene the number of beam angles required to cover the geometry properly. So, more is better. Then, there is the question of whether to introduce the beam along the geometry (i.e., axially), or into the geometry (i.e., circumferentially), or both. The LPA technology simplies this considerably, and the optimized inspection typically utilizes a combination of the two: beams angulated axially and beams angulated circumferentially, both introduced during a circumferential scan. For the latter, a variety of xed axial interrogation angles should be performed to cover the full axial length of the attachment dovetail. Alternatively, two dimensional arrays can be used to steer the beam both axially and circumferentially. Regardless, because the scan is circumferential and the geometry is machined axially across the rim, the resulting data represents intermittent, yet sequential passage by the dovetails. Consequently, data analysis is primarily performed on the basis of pattern recognition, i.e., looking for response(s) that do not t the typical pattern created as the dovetails pass. Because so many beam angles and so many crack locations are possible,
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FIG. 25.15 LPRIMLIfE fINITE ElEMENT MOdElS Of TWO dIffERENT dOVETAIl TYpES, TANGENTIAl-ENTRY (lEfT) ANd CURVEd AXIAl-ENTRY (RIGHT)
data analysis can be a very time consuming, tedious undertaking. Because of the generation of a large number of beam angles, the LPA technology can produce a huge amount of data very rapidly and very reliably. However, sorting through all of the data looking for relevant indications can be a very detailed and time-consuming process. Remaining life assessment for disk rim dovetails can be as demanding an undertaking as the inspections, owing to the large number of different geometries that may be encountered. The state-of-the-art for the LP disk rim analysis of SCC in LP blade stages at and beyond the PTZ is the EPRI LPRimLife computer code. This program includes geometry modeling leading to nite element analysis for any of the geometric congurations
comprising the vast majority of those currently in service, including: the tangential-entry, straddle-mount; the straight axial-entry; the curved axial-entry; and, the dovetail nger plates. Figure 25.15 shows nite element meshes generated within LPRimLife for typical tangential-entry, straddle-mount and the curved axial-entry blade attachment designs, while Figure 25.16 shows a model of the pinned plate dovetails. On the various r tree dovetail designs, one of the prime considerations that must be factored into the analysis, and which is integral to the LPRimLife program, is stress redistribution. As a crack grows, the cracked hook loses capacity to carry load; consequently, the load must be redistributed to other hooks on the r tree dovetail. The LPRimLife program includes consideration for
FIG. 25.16 LPRIMLIfE fINITE ElEMENT MOdEl Of THE pINNEd plATE ATTACHMENTS
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both initiation and crack growth, and it is extremely important to consider the impact of redistributed stresses on initiation times and on subsequent crack growth rates at other hooks, and upon diminished growth rate because of lowered stress at the initial crack. This analysis is extremely complex in execution, requiring an iterative process at very ne crack extension intervals to properly assess this primary consideration as it impacts remaining life. One outcome of an analysis can be that the worst (i.e., deepest or biggest) crack in a dovetail does not represent the worst case condition. Consider a dovetail design having three hooks, as an example. If only one hook is cracked, that means that the other hooks are still in the initiation stage and can continue to support additional load redistributed from the cracked hook. This might take signicant time, allowing continued operation over an extended period. In another case, if all three hooks have cracks, even small cracks, at the same position along the dovetail (i.e., stacked), then all have passed initiation and are in the growth mode. In such case, the remaining life may well be less than for the large, single-hook crack. So, the analyst must understand these interactions and carefully choose the crack conditions to analyze such that the worst case condition is dened during the analysis. The natural tendency is to pick the largest crack and analyze that, but in this case, the largest crack may not be the most life limiting case. Another prime consideration in the analysis of tangentialentry, straddle-mount dovetails is the stress analysis around the notch block. The hooks immediately adjacent to the notch block are prime locations for crack initiation, typically ahead of other regions around the periphery, due to elevated stress associated with the stress singularity created by the notch in addition to the added load of the notch block being supported by the blades on either side. This is not always the worst case crack location, as local machining variations and localized exposure history may cause cracking elsewhere ahead of the notch block region. Consequently, comprehensive inspection should not be waived and just the area around the notch block tested. However, the tendency is for the notch block area to initiate rst; consequently, this is a good location to concentrate initial inspection efforts.
25.8
SOlid (UNBOred) TUrBiNeROtOrs
As alluded to earlier, some older turbine rotors were made without bore holes. Additionally, modern steelmaking and forging practices have now made it possible to make forgings for which the benets of lowering the central stress via elimination of the stress concentrating bore typically outweigh the potential for having an undetected critical aw in the forging. The compound effects of lowering the stress and increasing the tolerable aw size simple based on the difference between a surface and subsurface aw increase the critical aw size to the point that it is simply not likely to occur by modern practices. For the older unbored rotors, the need for periodic inspection is obvious. They can contain signicant aws and clusters that can link up to eventually form critical aws. Unfortunately, failure of modern solid forgings is not totally unheard of; consequently, owners seek to have these rotors inspected as well. Inspection of these rotors is not a trivial undertaking, and even under the best of circumstances and when using the most comprehensive and effective inspection approaches available, the best that can be accomplished is a partial inspection. Access and the ability to direct beams into the material at the appropriate angles for detection of the more critical radialaxial
aws impose the most restrictive limitations. Consider, for example a built up LP turbine rotor having a central shaft and assembled disks such as shown in Figure 25.2. This certainly would not be a prevalent design, and such a rotor may not even existsolid shaft with assembled disksbut it is useful to make a point. In such case, there would be very few, if any, locations along the body of the rotor at which an ultrasonic beam could be introduced into the shaft material. In the more likely cases in which the involved rotors have integral disks, access to OD surfaces appropriate for launching the ultrasound is still very limited, typically to the small lands between the disks and the sides of the disks themselves. When using the surfaces between disks, the inspection is often further complicated by the presence of relatively narrow lands and grooves placed there for sealing purposes. When using the sides of the disks themselves, the geometries may well complicate the inspection because the transducer wedges must be contoured to t. Consequently, for any but at sides on the disks, special wedges may be required. Regardless, even for locations where appropriate transducer placement can be accomplished, an optimum inspection for radial axial aws is achieved only in the cross sectional plane of the transducerthat is, directly under the transducer. For locations axially removed from this plane, for example, under the disk center, some level of coverage can be achieved using beam spread. However, beam intensity decreases with increasing distance from the beam axis, so sensitivity diminishes accordingly. Additionally, for the aw of interest, i.e., the radialaxial aw, the reectivity of a given aw in the direction of the transducer decreases due to its orientation relative to the beam direction. Together, these factors mean that reection amplitude for a given aw decreases away from the cross sectional plane of the transducer, and the wider the disk, the more signicant the sensitivity reduction. In some cases involving relatively wide disks, inspection beneath the disk center simply cannot be accomplished using single transducer, pulse-echo techniques. Even if the beam angle is appropriately modied such that beam intensity is maintained, the directionality of the reection makes detection of the radialaxial aw less than optimum. In such case, the only option is to use a transmitter on one side of the disk and a receiver appropriately positioned on the opposite side to receive the reected signal. This then introduces the necessity to coordinate the positions and motion of two independently held transducers. For the narrower disks, there are ways to compensate for the reduced sensitivity effects, for example by simply increasing gain. However, there are other complications that cannot be accounted. The way to best assess the position of a reector is to scan it until the peak response is obtained, which generally means that the aw is then located on the peak intensity point within the beam, i.e., the beam axis. On these rotors, the ability to scan axially is typically limited severely by the geometry; consequently, for any xed beam angle the exact axial position of the reector remains unknown and the appropriate gain increase needed to compensate for its off-axis position therefore cannot be dened. There is also the possibility that the reector can be offset radially, i.e., away from the rotor centerline. The same considerations apply for these. Looking rst only within the cross sectional plane of the transducer and considering only a straight, radial beam, a radialaxial aw that is offset signicantly from the rotor centerline is more aligned with the beam than normal to it as the transducer passes over it; consequently, sensitivity to this aw is signicantly diminished because of its orientation. By comparison, the same reector located at or near the rotor centerline comes into a plane normal or near normal to the beam at two positions within the scan
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25-18 Chapter 25
around the rotor. To inspect for off-axis, radialaxial aws, angle beams are required, and to cover any appreciable radial distance, multiple angles are required as shown in Figure 25.17. The further the zone of coverage from the rotor axis, the higher the refracted angle required for optimum detection. And then there is the combination of these limitations when attempting to address off-axis, radialaxial aws that are additionally under the disk and away from the cross-sectional plane of transducer placement. Compound refraction of the beam away from the rotor axis and pitched to direct it under the disk is required to detect aws that are located in the rotor. So, from all of these, it can be seen that a good inspection will require multiple angles radially and axially from all access locations and typically implemented in all combinations, plus possibly pitchcatch arrangements for some areas. It is easy to see that the inspection can become very complicated and very timeconsuming to implement. Fortunately, the LPA technology discussed previously as implemented for turbine disks can also be used here to simplify and streamline this inspection as well. Certainly, it is feasible and relatively straight forward to implement the various radial angle beam inspections in the plane of the transducer, i.e., those shown in Figure 25.17, during a single scan by utilizing the beam steering capabilities of a single dimensional linear array. By adding a refracting wedge that pitches the beam appropriately in the axial direction under the disk, and then using the same steering process to steer the beam radially, the inspection under the disk can be accomplished. As the axial length of the disk increases, multiple axial angles may be required. Alternatively, a 2-dimensional array can be used to steer both axially and radially. An optional or supplemental technique that can be used in certain situations involves introduction of the beam from the sides of the disks. This is relatively easy to implement on disks having at sides and particularly effective when they are tapered, getting narrower toward the OD of the disk. In this case, the beam in the rst introduced radially toward the rotor axis and steered axially using the array, as shown in Figure 25.18. Then, to cover for
FIG. 25.18INSpECTION fROM THE dISK SIdE SURfACES
off-axis aws, the transducer can be skewed somewhat and then the axial steering repeated during a second scan around the disk. Several skew angles may be required to cover fully adequate radial depth from the rotor centerline, and the inspection should be repeated from both faces as shown and in both skew directions. As with the other inspections dened earlier, the axial sweep and beam skew +/ can all be accomplished concurrently using a 2-D array. Once the inspection data have been acquired and processed and the aws dened as best possible, the rotor analysis follows the same procedure using the same computer program as dened for bored rotors. Typically this is done using the EPRI SAFER program or similar.
25.9
GeNerAtOr ROtOrs
FIG. 25.17MUlTIplE ANGlE BEAM INSpECTION fOR Off-AXIS plANAR REflECTORS
Turning now from the turbines to the generators, those having central bore holes are inspected with the same boresonic equipment and following the same inspection protocols and procedures as those used for turbine boresonic inspection. Disassembly and reassembly of the rotor is a bit more involved than for the turbine rotors, which merely require bore plug removal to access the bore surface. The generator rotor bore contains insulated conductors that carry the DC current to the rotor windings. There must be some means of getting the DC to the rotor windings, and the bore provides a convenient path to get the excitation from the exterior, past the seals, and past the bearing journals. Once beyond the seals and journals, conductive radial studs bring the DC to the shaft OD where additional conductors contained typically in wedged slots running along the shaft OD connect from the studs to the rotor windings. These conductors are insulated from each other and from the ground potential of the rotor itself, and are typically installed as a completed assembly. Once the bore plug has been removed from the collector or exciter end of the rotor, the insulated and sealed radial stud components must be removed, and then the insulated axial conductor assembly can be removed. The axial conductor assembly extends into the rotor only to a point somewhat inside the bearing journal and not to the rotor body. This rotor section is typically much smaller in diameter and
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therefore operates at much lower stress and, because the sections are typically uninterrupted cylindrical shapes, these area can alternatively be inspected conveniently from the OD. Consequently, a plug can be installed in the bore from the turbine end of the rotor, and a bore inspection of the full body length can be conducted without disassembly of the leads. This saves the expense of removing the additional rotor end plug, the radial stud assemblies, and the axial conductors. It eliminates the need for certain replacement parts and for a new replacement bore plug. And an effective inspection can be conducted from the OD toward the shaft end where the leads are located. But the plug must be 100% reliable in containing the honing oil and honing debris and containing the couplant uids used during the ultrasonic inspection; otherwise, the leads will have to be removed and reinsulated after the fact, potentially extending the outage. Additionally, some manufacturers install steel ller bars in the generator rotor bores over the length of the body section to replace the magnetic material removed by placement of the bore. Because the magnetic ux lines pass through the rotor body, the theory is that the use of the ux bars improves the magnetic efciency of the rotor. Some manufacturers adhere to this practice, while others do not. Where ux bars are present, obviously these must be removed to provide access to the bore for honing and inspection. Otherwise, inspection of a generator rotor from the bore is identical to inspection of a turbine rotor. Typically, the generator is longer than the turbines, somewhat longer than the LP rotors, and signicantly longer than the HPs, IPs, and even HP/IP combined rotors, so inspections take a bit more time. Additionally, there is typically a step in the bore near the end of the axial conductors, the nominal bore being of a diameter selected to best clear indications and the conductor bore being of a xed diameter set by standard conductor sizes. Any steps and transitions take special bore preparation processes, and the different sizes may require that some of the xtures be changed to accommodate and/or re calibration of the test system. So, additional time must be provided accordingly. Inspection of unbored generator rotors, however, is an altogether different application than described for turbines. Winding slots run from one end of the body to the other over more than half of the rotor peripherylikely closer to 65% - 70%, leaving some 30% or so comprising the poles, which in most cases do not have slots. Even in the pole sections, some designs include ammor tisseur windings, axial conductors that are there to carry surface currents cause by electrical fault conditions, including motoring. While the ammortisseur slots, if present, are shallow and leave sufcient space between for spot inspections, the winding slots run on the order of six inches or so deep, leaving narrow teeth between that are typically on the order of -inch or so wide at the narrowest point. So, inspection of the rotor central material from the slotted sections of the rotor is effectively not possible. That is, the thin, long rotor teeth do not lend themselves to reliable inspection of the rotor central material. Additionally, the rotor typically has other machining that interferes with implementation of any meaningful inspection from the OD, even from the poles. For example, some manufacturers machine some form of land and grove conguration along the rotor to increase the surface area for cooling purposes. In some designs, the lands and grooves as part of the ventilation delivery design. Even here, though, where the machining is useful only in the slotted region, because the pattern is produced by turning the rotor, it is present at the poles as well as the slotted portions. Figure 25.19 shows an air gap pickup ventilated rotor and a typical rotor OD machining conguration.
FIG. 25.19TYpICAl AIR GAp pICKUp VENTIlATEd GENERATOR ROTOR
For the most part, inspection of a generator rotor from the OD is very difcult at best, and provides little value because of the limitations imposed by the slots and the surface machining congurations. There are exceptions, but most cases are very difcult. Limited inspections can be performed on unbored generator rotors during rewinds, when the slots are stripped of their windings. Special probe wedges can be contoured to t the slot bottoms, thus enabling inspection of the body length over much of the volume. If including beam spread in the equation, and if performed using LPA swept beams, this approach attains approximately 75%-80% coverage of the rotor volume. If inspection can additionally be conducted from the OD surface of the rotor at the magnetic poles, then the remainder of the rotor has good coverage as well. Otherwise, the limited inspection from the slot bottoms is the best that can be achieved. Analysis of a generator rotor is typically much simpler than that of a turbine for several reasons. First the geometries are relatively uniform, so fewer sections need to be modeled. For example, the rotor body cross section is the same from one end to the other and can be modeled as a single section. Turbines, on the other hand, have numerous sections, disk sizes, blade loads, etc., each requiring geometry-specic analysis. Second, because generator rotors operate much cooler than the turbines, thermal stresses and transient thermal events are negligible. These typically are not even considered in the analysis unless specically analyzing the impact of signicant transient events or fault conditions. And nally, because the generator rotors operate much cooler, thermal degradation mechanisms, such as creep and temper embrittlement, do not pose any form of a threat. Aside from these factors that make the generator rotor analyses much simpler, the treatment of the aws is performed exactly the same as for the turbine rotors.
25.10
GeNerAtOr ROtOr RetAiNiNG RiNGs
Retaining rings are high strength ring forgings that are assembled onto each end of AC generator rotors to support the rotor end turn windings. The rotor windings are contained over the length of
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25-20 Chapter 25
FIG. 25.20GENERATOR ROTOR RETAINING RING ANd SUppORTEd ENd TURN WINdINGS
the rotor body in axial slots machined into the rotor body. Provisions are included in the conguration of the rotor teeth, i.e., the material remaining between the slots, for wedges to contain and support the windings in the slots. At the ends of the rotor body, the winding coils exit the slots and wrap around the solid pole sections of the rotor, re-entering a symmetrical slot on the opposite side of the pole. The retaining rings support the windings in the end turn region where they are otherwise unsupported and cannot support their own centrifugal load in the cantilevered conguration. Fig ure25.20 shows the coil/slot/ring arrangement. The retaining ring is assembled in all cases using an interference t which places the ring under tensile stress when at standstill. Most often, the shrink t is between the end of the rotor body and the inboard end of the retaining ring, although some limited designs place the shrink t at the outboard end of the retaining ring, typically onto a uted section of the rotor. Typical designs also include a circumferential key assembly at or near the shrink t region to prevent axial movement of the ring. This can be a separate key in a machined keyway, scalloped bayonet t, mating step, or others. The shrink t at the nose of the retaining ring and the circumferential key can be seen in Figure 25.20. The shrink t is designed such that the ring maintains intimate contact with the rotor even under maximum overspeed and electrical fault heating conditions such that full and continuous support of the winding coils is maintained at all times, even under the most extreme fault conditions. The shrink t interface also provides a current path for surface currents circulating under certain abnormal operating conditions, and must maintain contact to minimize arcing and subsequent related damage. Some designs include specic provisions, i.e., specic additional current conductors under the rings to carry these surface currents, while others rely solely on the retaining ring and conduction through the t.
The rings used on modern generator rotors are typically made from a high strength, non-magnetic, austenitic steel alloy which is one of several possibly compositions. These rings operate in the magnetic eld created by the generator rotor and therefore are heated magnetically and thus producing heating losses. The use of non-magnetic material minimizes the heating losses and so increases generator efciency. Domestic generator manufacturers rst used non-magnetic materials during the 1940s, and continue to use non-magnetic materials to the present. Over the years, catastrophic retaining ring failures have occurred occasionally, and for some non-magnetic ring failures, the investigations that ensued found the failures to be attributable to intergranular stress corrosion cracking (IGSCC). In addition, vast amounts of related research have shown that IGSCC can occur even in the presence of relatively benign environments, including moisture. Following the discovery that IGSCC is an operative damage mechanism under certain exposure conditions, this damage mechanism quickly became a major concern. One alloy in particular, containing nominally 18% Manganese and 5% Chromium (generically known as 18-5), received a great deal of attention, in fact the majority, because of the large number of rings made from this alloy. This alloy was used extensively by most generator manufacturers world-wide for many years. In fact, it was the industry standard; consequently, thousands of the 18-5 rings have been placed into service. The history of retaining ring failures shows that there have been very few domestic failures involving the 18-5 material and attributable to IGSCC, although failures of this alloy have been more pervasive world-wide. In a study conducted by EPRI in the early 1980s, a total of 39 failures were found to have occurred on retaining rings in general world-wide [2]. Of these, nine were of the 18-5 alloy. Of the nine 18-5 ring failures, two were not really retain-
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ing rings but zone cooling rings that additionally had pre-existing machining tears, two occurred in Europe in water-cooled rotors that had water leaking directly onto the rings (water cooled rotors are not offered by domestic manufacturers), one was caused by condensation during prolonged, improper storage, one was attributable to an overspeed incident and not IGSCC, one was attributed to low ductility material and not IGSCC, and one involved a crack that was discovered during an inspection but not associated with a failure in the normal denition of failure. This accounts for eight of the dened failures, leaving a single 18-5 retaining ring failure that is germane to a discussion of IGSCC in rings of designs typically implemented by domestic manufacturers. And, even this failure had extenuating circumstances including low gas temperature, operation of the ring in the cold gas (not typical), high moisture content, and lower bound fracture toughness [3]. Other failures may have occurred since, but the noted EPRI study is the last known comprehensive study that has been published, so information on more recent failures is sketchy at best. So, a reasonable question might bewith thousands of rings in services in the US alone for many, many years, why only one IGSCC failure? The simple answer is that moisture exposure is typically not that usual an event. If we look at the generator as a whole and specically at the retaining rings, in general the rings in most typical designs operate at elevated temperature. Typical operating temperatures are, in fact, well above the point at which moisture can condense on the rings, even if the cooling gas contains signicant moisture. One could then speculate that exposure must occur when the machines are shut down, whether remaining closed or open to the environment. All available literature on this topic suggests that this is most likely the case. In one possible exposure scenario, consider the operating generator that has moisture in the cooling gas when it is shut down and goes on standby. This could denitely lead to exposure. Or consider the rotor sitting unprotected on an outdoor turbine deck. An earlier study, for example, showed that most of plants where damage in 18-5 rings has been found are outdoor units located in high humidity regions of the countryalong the southeastern seaboard and gulf coast [4]. So that at least implies that the exposure occurred when the rotors were sitting on the turbine decks. But laboratory experiments and published data indicate rapid growth rates, so even under the limited time exposures experienced during standby, why have we found many damaged rings, but generally having relatively minor damage, and only one failure? One published report addresses a potential re-incubation time [4]. The laboratory data shows that crack growth stops when the moisture is removed. However, when reintroduced to an existing crack, several hundred hours are required before the crack begins to grow again. Perhaps, this provides the explanationperhaps the rings simply do not see sufcient exposure, over sufcient durations, and at sufcient frequency to grow crack to failure. None of this is meant to imply that this problem is trivial or that it should be ignored. This is a very demanding application for any material, requiring extremely high strength of up to 180 ksi yield strength or possibly even a bit higher, good fracture toughness on the order of 150 ksi root inch, high corrosion and stress corrosion resistance, and appropriately low magnetic permeability. In the wake of the discovery that these rings are susceptible to IGSCC, a new alloy having 18 Manganese, 18 Chromium composition (18-18) was developed as a suitable replacement. Ring suppliers and generator manufacturers quickly adopted recommendations for wholesale ring replacement, an expensive proposition considered by many to be unsupported by the failure history. However,
for those not able or inclined to implement appropriate mitigation measures with which to enable continued operation of 18-5 rings, replacement likely is the most reliable and least involved solution. Still, many owners have not been inclined to replace rings, particularly given the relatively exemplary operating history. As a result, through the mid- and late-1980s, EPRI invested heavily in related research directed toward justiable avoidance of ring replacement based on valid condition assessment and effective moisture mitigation. The EPRI program was directed toward all aspects of an effective asset management approach. It addressed inspection, moisture monitoring, moisture mitigation, and analytical assessment protocols, with the overall objective of providing viable options to the utility owner-operator to allow continued safe, reliable operation of 18-5 rings. This research led to the following advancements: effective non-destructive evaluation procedures with which to detect extremely small aws, well smaller than those required to cause sudden failure; effective equipment and procedures to ensure that rings are maintained at all times in appropriately dry environments; monitoring systems with which to assess ongoing environ mental conditions, make the appropriate adjusts if/as necessary, and discontinue operation when unable to control properly; quantication of the actual crack depths necessary for sudden failure and demonstration that they are relatively largefor example, even the low fracture toughness of the single IGSCC failure described above withstood a crack 0.6-inch deep 1.1inch long before it failed; and, development of a probabilistic life assessment computer code (RRing-Life) to statistically account for all of the factors potentially impacting crack initiation, crack growth, and failure. Ring replacement, which is very expensive to the owner, can be avoided in many cases except those in which aws have already grown to excessive sizes or where other specic conditions cannot be maintained within acceptable limits. Effective non-destructive evaluation (NDE) provides the means to assess current condition in terms of existing cracks and/or less dramatic evidence of prior moisture exposure. Moisture mitigation procedures can be implemented to minimize future exposure to hostile environments. And, probabilistic condition assessment provides a realistic means to assess the potential for crack initiation and growth and for ring failure. From an owners viewpoint, inspections are ideally conducted with the rings assembled to the rotors in order to avoid ring removal and reassembly costs. From an NDE standpoint, it is also advantageous to perform the inspections with the rings assembled to the rotor because of the shrink-t that tends to hold cracks open and make them more readily detectable. The materials used for retaining rings acquire their properties via work hardening, typically mandrel expansion. This process leaves the resulting forging in a state of relatively high compressive residual stress, likely in the tens of thousands of pounds per square inch (psi). On the other hand, when assembled to the rotor, shrink t stresses are highly tensile, on the order of 80, 90, 100 or even greater psi tensile, depending on the rotor size. The change in stress from highly tensile to moderately high compressive when the ring is removed from the rotor has a crack closure affect that profoundly impacts the ability to detect the cracks using ultrasonic techniques. When an interface (gap) that provides the acoustic impedance mismatch required to
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cause a reection is reduced to some value that is a fraction of the UT wavelength, the sound merely passes through and beyond the gap. Squeezing the cracks closed has this affect. Consequently, ultrasonic inspection (UT) approaches, performed with the rings on the rotor and under tensile shrink t stress, provide the most effective means of inspecting inaccessible surfaces. EPRI research [3] clearly demonstrated that the reliability of detecting any specic crack in retaining rings is appreciably enhanced through the application of multiple inspection methods and modes. Clearly, the detectability of a crack is affected by many variablessize, shape, morphology, orientation, location, and so on. One of the most likely locations for cracking to occur is along the edges of the rotor teeth in the shrink t region. This is because the moisture, when present, tends to wick along the coil/slot-wall interface, where it then contacts the ring at the tooth edges. Tooth edges, unfortunately, also constitute ultrasonic reectors in and of themselves; consequently, it can be difcult at times to distinguish between pure geometry and geometry with a co-located crack. This is true of conventional, contact shear wave (S-wave) UT techniques, which are typically used for the basic detection scans on the rings. However, other techniques provide for improved discrimination between the two reectors and are typically used to supplement the conventional inspection for this exact reason. Time-of-ight diffraction (TOFD) UT is a dual transducer ultrasonic technique that places the two transducers on opposite sides of area of interest, directed toward each other. One is the transmitter and the other is the receiver, and reector depth below the test surface is calculated based on the time of ight using a simple geometric triangulation algorithm. TOFD relies on forward-reected and diffracted responses and therefore does not respond at tooth edges in the same way as the conventional backreection approaches. And TOFD can discriminate very positively and reliably between a surface indication (geometry) and a subsurface indication (crack tip diffraction) via the propagation time depth calculation. However, TOFD relies on tip diffraction responses to make this distinction, and these diffraction responses are generally low in amplitude relative to reections. Because cracks are intergranular, they do not always produce sufciently coherent tip responses for reliable detection. Consequently, this technique can miss cracks. However, even so, TOFD still can play a signicant role. TOFD is extremely effective for discrimination and sizing purposes when it does detect, and can easily be performed as a supplemental inspection at the shrink-t regions, at all other geometric discontinuities such as steps and transitions where cracks are most likely to occur, and as needed in other locations where indications have been detected during the basic pulse-echo detection scans to further characterize the indication source. Other techniques can also be utilized as needed to aid in aw discrimination and proper classication including a modeconverted L-wave (MCLW) UT inspection technique, an inner surface creeping wave inspection, and focused beam approaches. Collectively, when implemented properly, these techniques result in a reliable inspection. The appropriately prepared inspector will have a number of tools in the toolbox in the way of multiple inspection approaches with which to optimize detection reliability and characterization accuracy. Regardless which inspections are performed, inspection effectiveness is dramatically dependent upon full automation. The used of robotic scanners, effective position manipulation and position acquisition, digital UT data acquisition, and state-of-the-art data imaging capabilities signicantly enhance the inspections.
Manual inspections are very difcult and reliability suffers appreciably. As compared to UT, eddy current (ET) inspection does not suffer loss of sensitivity due to crack closure. When the surface cracks are squeezed shut under high compressive stress, the oxide that has formed on the faces of the crack serves as an electrical insulator such that, even when the faces of the crack are pressed together, there is still an electrical discontinuity which ET picks up very readily. PT inspection is about the only other option, but because PT relies on capillary action to pull the penetrant into the crack, PT does suffer from crack closure. Therefore, for removed rings, ET provides a superior inspection option. For outer surface inspection of assembled rings, PT and ET provide the two options. Even when the rings are assembled, damage forms on retaining rings tend to be tight and not particularly conducive to rudimentary PT approaches. The application of a visible PT inspection using the typical procedures appropriate for these PT systems is simply not adequate for reliable detection. For optimum results, the PT should be lipophilic and non-hygroscopic, such that the PT in and of itself does not constitute moisture exposure potential. It should be high resolution, uorescent, and it should be implemented using lengthy penetrant application and developer dwell times. Eddy current inspection is also effective on the outer surface for the inspection of assembled rings. ET can be implemented either manually, typically only to corroborate PT indications locally, or using the same basic data acquisition and imaging system when testing large areas, in which case, automation is considered necessary. Eddy current arrays are now also available for rapid surface inspection on retaining rings. For the analysis of retaining rings, the only available computer analysis program specically used to perform remaining life assessments of IGSCC in non-magnetic retaining rings is the EPRI RRing-Life program. This is a fully integrated program that includes built-in nite element modeling capabilities with which to perform stress analyses for specic, generic ring designs. It is a probabilistic code that provides exposure probabilities based on detailed assessment of a number of exposure sources. For example, the code includes a link to National Weather Service statistics such that the local environmental conditions can be applied for the location of the unit during machine-open intervals. This is not exact data, for example, humidity conditions on exact dates, but statistical representations that provide probabilities of exposure when open to the environment in general for the local climatic conditions. It provides the means to bias this information based on implementation of specic moisture mitigation provisions applied at the plant or where known exposure events have occurred. It provides statistical exposure probabilities from specic events such as cooler leaks and leaks in water-cooled windings. The program divides the analysis into three basic generator operational modesrunning, stand-by, and open. Consequently, it provides the ability to dene when the rings are most likely to see exposure such that maintenance and mitigation dollars can be spent most effectively. One of the most effective uses of the program, once all of the modeling is complete and the basic exposure scenarios have been quantied, is to perform sensitivity studies. The variables can be systematically altered to determine which are most sensitive to change. Again, by dening those variables that are most sensitive to change, the owner can dene the most effective mitigation program and thereby maximize return on investment. A class of magnetic materials was also utilized on older machines and is still used in some instances, even on new genera-
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tors. For the most part, the primary damage mechanism in these rings is fatigueprimarily low cycle fatigue due to start/stop operation and possibly high cycle fatigue under limited, abnormal conditions. However, when discussing fatigue issues in rings, they apply equally to the non-magnetic alloys as to the magnetic rings. The magnetic rings just dont appear to suffer IGSCC as the non-magnetic rings do. One possible high cycle fatigue driver involves torsional oscillations of the rotor due to electric system unbalance, both steady state and those related to transient events. A disturbance on the electrical system puts a sudden torque on the rotor. Because of the very limited torsional damping in the rotor system, the torsional oscillations decay slowly and therefore accumulate many, many cycles on the rotors from a single torsional event. These can lead to torsional cracking of shafts, excitation of higher order turbine blade frequencies that can fatigue blades, and torsional relative motion of shrink assembled components. Years ago, a shrunk-on turbine disk failed in a unit operating near a steel mill that was operating an electric furnace. The cracking initiated by fretting fatigue, but once initiated grew by torsional fatigue. The transients introduced by the electric furnace were blamed for the failure. Similarly, a retaining ring failure that occurred more recently was attributed to exactly the same situation. It too was located near a steel mill operating an electric furnace. The torsional events caused fretting fatigue initiation of cracks at the shrink t of the retaining ring, and the cracks then were driven to failure by the continuing torsional oscillations produced frequently by the transient torque events. Otherwise, operative damage mechanisms are not generic to the eet, but limited to specic designs, specic alloys or subsets of alloys, and possibly to specic operating conditions. An issue known to exist for certain magnetic rings is that of hydrogen embrittlement, but it has only been dened for rings of a specic alloy and, even for this alloy, for rings beyond a certain yield strength within the particular alloy. Programs for these rings include hardness tests to predict yield strength, coupled with inspections for the detection of existing cracks. Another nonmagnetic alloy known as Gannaloy, a NickelTitaniumChromium Aluminum alloy, was used by one manufacturer for a number of years on certain generators. Several failures have occurred and the manufacturer has recommended replacement of all Gannaloy rings. Failure investigations have not provided adequate insight relative to the failure mechanisms nor any means to predict or prevent failure; consequently, the manufacturers recommendations appear to be appropriate and well-founded, without options as those available for well-maintained and periodically inspected 18-5 rings. Inspections for retaining rings other than the 18-5 rings do not vary appreciably form the 18-5 inspections. The same procedures are valid and the same implementation means, i.e., full automation, digital acquisition, and quality imaging capabilities, are still important. Crack closure is still an issue for free standing rings, although MT inspection provides and additional option for free standing magnetic rings. Additionally, fatigue cracks and similar as found in magnetic rings do not have the branched, intergranular nature of IGSCC cracks. Consequently a more coherent crack tip is present, increasing the detection reliability when using ultrasonic tip diffraction techniques. As a result, the application of redundant inspection techniques is not as much an issue. Having said that, however, geometric reectors still present a discrimination challenge when using conventional, pulse-echo techniques; consequently; some form of positive tip diffraction UT, such as TOFD, adds signicantly to the inspection, and application of
redundant inspection approaches still improves reliability of the inspection. For an analytical assessment of remaining life of retaining rings other than 18-5 and/or damage mechanisms other than IGSCC, typically these would be conducted using general purpose nite element stress analysis programs, such as ANSYS or similar, and general fracture analysis procedures. In general, however, cracks propagating by any mechanism other than IGSCC are not so readily disrupted. Whereas IGSCC growth in 18-5 rings can be arrested by eliminating the corrosive environment, fatigue cracks for example will continue to grow so long as the stress cycling continues. Additionally, initiation time for fatigue cracks typically represents the vast majority of life, leaving little for growth. As a result, once detected cracks typically must be dealt with at the time, either by local removal or ring replacement.
25.11
GeNerAtOr ROtOr TOOtH-TOP CrAcKiNG
Two specic cracking mechanisms exist on typical domestic generator rotors. Each is specic to a particular design approach and therefore is generic to a particular manufacturer or to manufacturers producing similar designs. The rst occurs in the retaining ring shrink-t area on rotors having Tee top teeth and in designs that leave some of the Tee-top in the shrink t region. The mechanism is fairly straight forward. When the ring is assembled to the rotor, the shrink t imposes a compressive load on the rotor teeth. This further imposes and inward bending stress on the cantilevered sides of the Tee-top. The function of the Tee-top is to mate with a matching wedge that supports the outward winding load developed by rotation of the rotor. When at speed, therefore, the winding load bears outward on the cantilevered sides of the Tee-top. The stress, in this condition, is a concentrated tensile stress at the inside radius where the Tee-top intersects the radial side of the tooth. The general conguration and loading is shown in Figure 25.21. In this diagram, the downward load occurs at standstill from the retaining ring shrink t, and the upward load occurs during operation due to the winding and wedge load. The stress cycle is start/stop operation, and the stresses are high enough that low cycle fatigue cracks can initiate in the radius, as shown, in as few as several hundred start/stop cycles. The end result of this cracking is unknown as no failures are known to have occurred. The proposed end result is that the teeth lose their ability to support the shrink t load at some point, so the retaining ring bears inward on the windings, thereby crushing the insulation around and between the winding coils. The failure would then be an electrical failure involving turn to turn shorts or coil to shaft grounds, the latter of which can be very destructive, melting copper and rotor steel and resulting directly in retirement of the rotor. Inspection of this region requires removal of the retaining rings and the end wedges to expose the radius where the cracks initiate. Inspection can then be by any surface technique inclusive of PT, MT, or ET, although because of the proximity to the winding components, the introduction of magnetic particles and/or liquid penetrants certainly introduces signicant risk of contaminating the windings and the winding insulation. Therefore ET inspection provides the better option. A second generator rotor tooth-top issue exists for many rotors that have steel wedges having hardness that closely matches the rotor hardness and involves a fretting fatigue initiation mechanism.
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FIG. 25.21TOOTH TEE-TOp CONfIGURATION (lEfT) ANd lOAdING (RIGHT)
Fretting occurs more readily where the materials are of similar hardness, i.e., where there are steel wedges, and therefore is worse where harder ferritic steel wedges are used. Relative motion is created by the once-per-revolution bending of the rotor. If a location on the rotor surface is selected and then followed through a full rotation, the location will be at maximum compressive bending stress when at 12:00, at neutral bending stress when at 3:00, at maximum tensile bending stress when at 6:00, back to neutral at 9:00, and nally back to maximum compressive when the location returns to 12:00. Put another way, the rotor surface length changes as the rotor rotates, shorter at 12:00 and longer at 6:00. The wedges, however, are not necessarily locked to the rotor, at least at slow speed, so they are not forced to undergo equivalent strain. Consequently, there is a relative motion between the wedges and the rotor. The relative motion experienced by any given wedge is equivalent to the strain accumulated in the rotor over a length equivalent to the wedge length minus any length that is locked to the rotor. If viewed from the wedge, there is symmetry over the length of the wedge; the axial center of the wedge therefore sees no relative motion at any speed. During startup as the rotor speed increases, the bearing load of the windings and wedge increases and, as the normal force increases, the friction force increases accordingly. This locks more and more of the wedge to the rotor, working from the wedge center toward the ends as the rotational speed increases. At some point the entire wedge locks to the rotor and no relative motion occurs from this point on until speed is reduced during shutdown. Fretting cannot occur at slow speed because the pressure load on the bearing interface is not sufcient to cause damage, even though the relative motion is high. At full speed and at some point before reaching full speed, the wedges lock to the rotor over their full lengths; consequently, the wedges see the same strain as the rotor, but without relative motion. At some intermediate speed, however, the bearing load and the relative motion occur concurrently at levels sufcient to cause fretting fatigue damage. Because the critical motion is limited to the material around the wedge ends, damage is limited to these same localized regions on the rotor, i.e., at and around the rotor wedge ends.
Fretting damage can lead to transverse (radialcircumferential) cracks which, under certain circumstances, can grow under pure bending fatigue. If a crack reaches the critical depth at which the bending stress is sufcient to grow the crack, stress cycles accumulate very rapidly, once per revolution, so the cracks typically grow very rapidly to failure. However, it also appears that there are some mitigating circumstances that reduce the likelihood of a fretting crack reaching the critical depth necessary for growth by pure bending. First of all, fretting in and of itself is a deection controlled process, so as the fretting crack grows deeper, it is growing out of the surface deformation; consequently, it arrests at some point. Additionally, because the cracks are relatively small, the presence of a crack is not sufcient to impact the deection. A second inuencing factor is that associated with Poisson effects in both the rotor and the wedges. As the rotor comes up to speed and expands radially, Poisson dictates that it must grow shorter as well. Additionally, the radial compressive load on the wedges causes a Poisson lengthening of the wedges. The axial contraction of the rotor and axial expansion of the wedges, coupled with the fact that the wedges are locked to the rotor at the wedge centers, introduces a compressive component of stress on the surface of the rotor teeth in the rotor material that has not yet locked to the wedge. As the speed increases and the Poisson effects increase, the compressive loads accumulate toward the ends of the wedges. A second potential source of axial compressive stress in the rotor derives from the forging process and residual stresses that can remain in the rotor. When these compressive stresses are combined with the axial bending stresses, the resultant axial tensile stress is reduced; consequently, the fretting crack must reach a greater depth before the axial bending stress alone can take over and grow the crack. Overall, a conclusion that must be drawn is that the stress situation is relatively complex and includes a number of contributory factors, many of which reduce the severity or the end result of this crack initiation mechanism. Susceptibility to fretting damage is associated with a number of rotor design considerations. First is the bending exibility of the rotor, as related to the length/diameter ratio. Longer, leaner rotors
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are more susceptible than are short, stout rotors. Susceptibility is further a function of the number of accumulated start/stop cycles, given that the combination of relative motion and compressive bearing load occur only at intermediate speeds, which are experienced only during startup and shutdown. Location along the length of the rotor is also important. Because maximum bending stress occurs at the axial center of the rotor, the shaft axial center is more susceptible than the ends. And susceptibility is a function of wedge length. The amount of strain that accumulates over the portion of the wedge that is not locked down at any given speed equates directly to the amount of relative motion at that speed. Another issue that involves a totally different initiation mechanism can ultimately lead to similar transverse cracking in the rotor in the immediate vicinity of the wedge ends on the underside of the tooth-top dovetails where the wedges contact the teeth. In this case, damage initiates from electrical arcing between the rotor teeth and winding wedges. Certain transient fault and steady state conditions can cause unbalance between the electrical phases, which reects over to the rotor as motor currents. Events that can cause these transient events include motoring incidents, line faults such as closely proximate lightning strikes, and so on. Steady state conditions can result, for example, if the unit is operated with unbalanced transformers on the three phases. The currents in the rotor conduct at the rotor surface, traveling down the rotor and typically around it at the retaining rings and them back along the opposite side of the rotor. In the rotor winding slot region, the currents tend to conduct in the wedges, arcing to the rotor teeth at the ends of the wedges and then back into the next wedge. Unlike the fretting damage, which tends to occur only where the rotor wedges are steel and therefore relatively closely matched in hardness to the rotor material, these surface currents tend to cause arcing damage at the ends of any of the slot wedges. In fact, where other materials are used for the wedges, for example, aluminum or other lower electrical resistance material, the arcing is more prevalent because of the lower resistance of the wedges, and, therefore, the increased potential for the current travel in the wedges and arc to the rotor at the wedge ends. Where arcing occurs, localized heating results and the severity is a function of the electrical current level. If the arcing is sufcient, the heating can actually be sufcient to cause phase transformation, i.e., re-austenitization and even melting. Damage can run the gamut, from very minor heating, localized spark erosion, reaustenitization, to melting, in which case, the melted zone is also going to be surrounded by re-austenitized material, and so on. When the heat source is removed, the re-austenitized material is quenched, resulting directly in a nugget of untempered martensite, which is very brittle and almost certainly cracks immediately under the imposed stress. Because the local stress is primarily an axial bending stress, any resulting cracks tend to form in a radialcircumferential plane, just like the fretting cracks. In this case, however, the depth of the resulting crack is not limited like it is for fretting cracks. Arcing damage is related to current levels and can immediately generate relatively deep cracks and otherwise damaged material. It is certainly possible to cause damage sufcient to retire the rotor. Other areas on the rotor where damage may also occur is at the retaining ring shrink t and at the ends of transverse exibility slots that are cut across the poles to equalize the moments of inertia about the pole and quadrature axes and therefore to minimize twice per revolution vibration. Inspection for tooth-top cracking of this type can take any of a number of forms and include any of a number of NDE methods. For moderate to severe electrical arcing damage, there is nothing
FIG. 25.22GENERATOR ROTOR SHOWING OVERHEATING dAMAGE ASSOCIATEd WITH CIRCUlATING CURRENTS AT THE WEdGE ENdS ANd THE ENd Of THE TRANSVERSE flEXIBIlITY SlOTS
like a good visual inspection of the rotor, concentrating on the areas dened above as being most prone to damage: the teeth surfaces adjacent to the wedge ends and the ends of the wedges themselves, the teeth and wedges and nose of the retaining ring adjacent to the shrink t, and the rotor material around the ends of the transverse exibility slots. Figure 25.22 provides a photograph of a rotor displaying denite signs of overheating damage on the teeth and wedges in the immediate vicinity of the wedge ends. In this photograph, the slot run horizontally, and one of the poles is shown covering the bottom ~1/3 of the photo. The end of one of the transverse exibility cross slots can be seen at the bottom right corner of the photo. This also exhibits very denite signs of overheating associated with circulating surface currents. For less extensive electrical damage and for any level of fretting damage, however, the damage does not manifest itself in any way that produces visible symptoms on the accessible surfaces. To detect these damage forms requires either ultrasonic inspection techniques or disassembly of the rotorat least removal of the retaining rings and the rotor slot wedgesto access the crack initiation surfaces and permit inspection by some surface inspection method. For wound rotors, even when the rings and wedges are removed, the use of PT and MT methods for the detection of cracks carries the same risks as dened earlier for the axial cracking of the toothtops. The inspections must be conducted in very close proximity to the winding components, including the slot insulation, and the risk of contamination is signicant. This can be done, but it requires extreme caution and extensive steps to protect the windings and insulation. For rotors that are being rewound, i.e., those from which the winding coils and insulation have been removed, either MT or PT are perfectly acceptable test methods, although viewing the underside of the tooth-top can be challenging, particularly if using the more sensitive uorescent MT or PT, which requires viewing under UV illumination. An alternative is to inspect the disassembled rotor using the ET inspection method. This, of course, still requires full disassembly to expose the initiation surfaces, and special ET probes, congured to match the geometry. This inspection benets immensely from automation, i.e., automated or semi-automated scanning, and full
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digital data acquisition and surface imaging. This requires a scanner that matches the slot geometry in some way and that holds the ET probe at the proper attitude in close proximity to the examination surface. The use of an ET array, i.e., an array of probes that collectively cover the entirety of the test surface width, speeds up the inspection signicantly in that the entirety of a tooth top surface can be inspected in a single scan pass along the length of the rotor. One manufacturer, in fact, the primary manufacturer in the US for which fretting fatigue of generator rotor tooth-tops is an issue, recommends removal of the retaining rings and slot wedges and implementation of an ET inspection protocol. Unfortunately, the disassembly and reassembly costs far exceed the inspection costs, likely by at least an order of magnitude. An alternative for the detection of underside tooth-top cracking without rotor disassembly involves UT from the outer surface and, in most cases, is implemented using the linear phased array. In some limited cases, the rotor OD surface is uniform and allows scanning of the transducer along the tooth length. This permits a fairly simple inspection protocol that utilizes either an LPA or conventional UT approach. However, in most cases, the linear array is required because of the rotor OD surface conditions. The complex surface congurations that are typical in these rotor designs can be observed by looking back at Figures 25.19 and 25.22. The machined lands and grooves effectively prevent axial scanning of the tooth top. The LPA technology provides the means to set the transducer in one stationary position along the tooth and to then sweep the beam through a series of angles to cover some length of the underside surface of the tooth-top. By utilizing multiple of the lands and grooves, the entirety of the wedge end regions can be covered adequately. Analysis of rotors for transverse cracking due to either fretting fatigue or arcing damage relies on nite element analysis using general purpose nite element programs such as ANSYS. That is, there is no custom, special purpose program with which to analyze specic tooth-top dovetail cracking situations on specic rotors. The analysis of fretting fatigue indications involves determination of the crack depth required to grow by once-per-revolution bending fatigue. If detected indications are smaller than this critical aw growth size, with appropriate safety factors applied, then further operation can be justied with limited risk of failure. For damage caused by electrical arcing, the analysis is not this simple. Arcing damage includes not only the resulting cracks, but also the damaged material surrounding the cracks. Consequently, the only way to assure future safe operability involves removal of all damaged material and metallographic verication of complete removal. Once this has been accomplished, then the modied rotor conguration can be modeled and analyzed to determine the impact of the new conguration on remaining life.
And then there is the issue of the availability of the data to the owner/operator. Often this information is simply not readily available. So, in all likelihood, the analysis will be conducted using public domain database properties, of which signicant quantities are typically available through various sources. Unfortunately, the spread in data for the key material property input variables is typically signicant; consequently, one is faced with making a decision on which value to use for the analysis. If performing a deterministic analysis, this means deciding the specic value that will be used, and for the sake of conservatism in the analysis, a worst case assumption is typically used. While this is the conservative approach, it means that the real value for the variable will, in nearly all cases, be better than the value used for the evaluation. In most cases, this analysis results in signicant overly conservative outcomes as a direct result. And, when one considers that this may apply for multiple variables, conservatism stacks on conservatism to a point at which it is not even reasonable. Even if performing a probabilistic analysis, the spread in the data still results in overly conservative assessments in the form of higher than actual probability of failure because of the inclusion of the worst case values even on a statistically applied basis. The solution is in the ability to more closely dene the variables, in this case, the specic material properties, and the most effective means of better dening the material properties uses samples extracted from the most critical region of the component being assessed. For a turbine rotor forging, this most often means the near-bore material. For a turbine disk, it could mean the material near the rim for blade attachment studies, and so on. A miniature sample removal tool is available for extraction of samples from the surface of a rotor bore, the side of a turbine disk, or other locations as needed and as appropriate. This specialized machining tool extracts a small wafer, about the size of a quarter dollar, leaving a smooth dimple in the surface. The tool is shown in a rotor bore in Figure 25.23. Analysis of the dimple has shown that it produces no meaningful increase in local stress, so the dimple can remain with no further conditioning. Miniature samples can be analyzed in the lab to quantify material chemical composition, measure hardness (thereby estimating yield strength), and dene material microstructure. Additionally, mechanical properties can be better characterized using automated ball indenture testing. Properties that can be quantied using miniature samples and the automated ball indenture test
25.12
AteriAl PrOPerties M CHArActeriZAtiON
When stress and fracture analysis indicates less that desired remaining life for a primary component, the uncertainty associated with material properties most often is a signicant contributor. Consider, for example, that many of these componentsrotor forgings, shrunk-on disks, retaining ringswere forged prior to the development of modern fracture mechanics approaches to crack propagation and ultimately to failure of the component. Consequently, even when the original material properties data is available, they may well not include fracture toughness or even FATT.
FIG. 25.23MINIATURE SAMplER INSIdE A ROTOR BORE
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include yield strength, ultimate tensile strength, fracture appearance transition temperature, and fracture toughness. Additionally, the sampler can be used to extract samples from the high temperature regions of HP and IP rotors to assess the material for creep damage and for temper embrittlement.
25.13
INsPectiON VAlidAtiON
The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has supported an extensive turbine and generator condition assessment program over the years. This program has effectively dealt with the primary aspects of T/G condition assessment, i.e., inspection validation and remaining life assessment. EPRI maintains NDE validation specimens for rotor bore inspection and turbine disk inspection. These test beds comprise samples with known aws (known only by EPRI, not the participating inspection vendor) that are used in blind tests to assess the capabilities of various inspection approaches. Some of the samples contain articial aws in the form of electron discharge machined (EDM) notches, drilled holes, etc. Some of the mockups contain more realistic, yet still man-made, aws in samples made by a hot isostatic press (HIP) process to metallurgically join segments with articial aws inserted at the interfaces. Still other samples have been removed from serviceexposed components and so contain naturally occurring aws. The EPRI T/G program has additionally led the way on the remaining life assessment aspect of condition assessment via production of the SAFER stress and fracture program for rotor bore assessment, the LPRimLife computer code for assessing turbine disk rim blade attachment dovetails, and RRing-Life for probabi listic assessment of generator retaining rings. These resources have contributed immensely to the advancement of the state-of-the-art for T/G assessment and are available to interested parties for further use as the need arises.
25.14
RePAirs
The rst and most obvious repair that can be implemented for any number of the described aw conditions, at least those at or very near a free surface, is to remove them by local excavation. This is typically done by grinding, carefully removing the aw, and ultimately putting the geometry at the site of the local material removal in the best condition possible to minimize the impact on local stresses. Conrmatory inspections, most often MT or PT, are implemented along the way to track the aw for minimum material removal while conrming complete aw removal. Because these inspection methods have inherent detection thresholds, i.e., a aw size that cannot be detected, nal conrmation by metallographic replication often follows the MT or PT. Machining for aw removal is another option. Over-bores and bottle bores are often implemented to remove aws detected at or near the rotor central bore surface. The generator rotor tooth-top cracking issues each have repairs that involve crack removal by machining, and in these cases, the repairs actually do improve the stress situation, so there is dual benet. More is presented on these later. Unfortunately, except for very rare situations, as for the generator rotor tooth-top repairs, repair by local material removal can only increase the local stress. Consequently, each repair has a maximum depth beyond which the benets of removing the aws are overridden by the negative impact of increased stress, and some other repair or replacement must be considered. And each repair typically
requires extensive analysis, most often involving 3-D nite element stress analysis, to dene the appropriate maximum allowable repair depth and to dene the optimum nal repair geometry. Repair of assembled components can often become very involved owing to the necessity of disassembling the components from the rotors. Generator rotor tooth-top repairs, regardless the design and the elected repair method, require fan, retaining ring, and wedge removal and reassembly upon completion of the repairs. Because this involves removal and reassembly of relatively massive components, it is not unusual for the rotor to require rebalancing before being returned to service. Similarly, repair of shrunk-on turbine disks and repairs for generator rotor coupling keyway cracking involve removal and reassembly of shrunk-on components, with similar processes involved. For the generator rotor tooth-top axial cracking associated with the retaining ring shrink t, there are a number of xes available. One, identied as a short ring x, involves removal of any existing cracks by local grinding or machining of the radius, increasing the radius at the initiation site in the process. Then the original or duplicate retaining rings are reassembled, and the crack initiation and growth clock is essentially reset. This x can be implemented only up to certain crack depths; otherwise the reduction in area associated with crack removal in and of itself structurally compromises the tooth integrity and ability to perform its intended function. In a long ring x, a longer retaining ring is used such that the circumferential key can be removed from the original shrink t area, thereby permitting full removal of the Tee-top over the length of the existing shrink t. The key is moved inboard on the rotor body relative to the shrink t, which necessitates the longer retaining ring. The machining dimensions at the two ts, the new shrink area where the Tee tops have been completely removed and the extended nose where the key has been moved, are designed such that the former carries the shrink t load. The latter sees no appreciable shrink t load, if any, but carries the outward load at speed. This x requires new retaining rings, and additionally a rotor rewind to accommodate insulation modications associated with the new ring design. However, this is a more permanent x, providing increased fatigue life, whereas the short ring x only resets the fatigue clock. Other repairs involve removal of the Tee-tops by machining the sides off rather than machining the OD, or combinations of the two. A number of repairs are available for the transverse cracking at the wedge ends that occurs either by fretting or negative sequence arc damage. While these repairs vary in detail, they generally improve the situation by removing any pre-existing damage by machining, and in the process, relieve the contact at the ends of the wedges such that the accumulated strain is distributed over greater length of the rotor tooth. This lowers the axial stress that drives the process. In addition to these very specic repairs, most if not all domestic manufacturers and any number of independent repair organizations now have established repair welding procedures and processes in place. In the case of turbine disk rim blade attachment cracking, it is not at all uncommon to simply machine away the entire outer periphery of the disk and then replace the material with a weld buildup of material. The attachment geometry is than machined into the new material and the blades are reassembled. Another approach involves similarly machining the entire dovetail region from the disk and then replacing it with a ring forging that is welded to the periphery. Weld repairs are also routinely used, for example, to replace cracked shaft ends and to build up material to enable restoration to original congurations where rubs and other events have forced material removal in the journal and seal areas.
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25-28 Chapter 25
Much has been presented on the state-of-the-art for inspecting major turbine and generator rotating components. Advances in modern inspection technology provide the ability to characterize aws as never before. LPA ultrasonic inspection technology is a prime example. A great deal of effort and expense has been expended to develop very specic, computerize remaining life assessment programs for specic turbine and generator components, and the accuracy of the analyses has improved as a direct result. Additionally, probabilistic approaches are available and are typically used to remove some of the conservatism inherent to the deterministic analysis process. We have the means available through miniature sample removal and testing to better dene material properties. And, we have any number of repair options available, some relatively generic and others applying to specic components. And so, yes, the state-of-theart for turbine and generator condition assessment has evolved, and continues to do so, with an ever present objective of extracting all possible useful life from these very expensive machines and components, while maintaining acceptable exposure to risk.
25.15
ReFereNces
1. Engelhardt G, Macdonald DD, Zhang Y, and Dooley B. Deterministic Prediction of Corrosion Damage in Low Pressure Steam Turbines. 14th ICPWS, Kyoto, Japan. August 2004. Also published in PowerPlant Chemistry, 2004, 6(11), pp 647661. 2. Viswanathan R. Retaining Ring Failures. Workshop Proceedings: Retaining Rings for Electric Generators. Palo Alto, CA: Electric Power Research Institute, August 1983. EPRI EL-3209. 3. Nottingham LD, Ammirato FV, MacDonald DE, Zayicek PA, and Elmo PM. Evaluation of Nonmagnetic Generator Retaining Rings Palo Alto, CA: Electric Power Research Institute, October 1994. TR-104209. 4. Kilpatrick NL, Schneider M. Update on Experience with InService Examination of Nonmagnetic Rings on Generator Rotors Workshop Proceedings: Generator Retaining Ring Workshop. Palo Alto, CA: Electric Power Research Institute, May 1988. EL-5825.
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STEAM TURBINE AND GENERATOR INSPECTION AND CONDITION ASSESSMENT

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NON-destrUctiVe INsPectiON MetHOds

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 UrBiNe DesiGN ANd COmPONeNt T OVerVieW

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FIG. 25.1 DFLP ROTOR SITTING IN THE BOTTOM HAlfSHEll

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ROtOr FOrGiNG AssessmeNt

 UrBiNe COmPONeNts ReQUiriNG T PeriOdic LiFe AssessmeNt

FIG. 25.2TURBINE ROTOR (DFLP) CROSS SECTION

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FIG. 25.3BORESONIC dRIVE ATTACHEd TO AN HP/IP ROTOR

FIG. 25.4IMAGE Of A BORE AXIAl CRACK IN AN HP TURBINE ROTOR

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FIG. 25.6SHRUNK-ON dISK ANd INSpECTION lOCATIONS

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FIG. 25.7 FAIlEd TURBINE dISK

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FIG. 25.9TYpICAl TRANSdUCER pOSITIONING dEVICE fOR TURBINE dISK INSpECTION

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 isK Rim BlAde AttAcHmeNt D DOVetAils

FIG. 25.11TYpICAl fIR-TREE BlAdE ATTACHMENT

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FIG. 25.13WET flUORESCENT MT INdICATION Of A CRACKEd dOVETAIl HOOK

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FIG. 25.14TYpICAl LPA S-SCAN IMAGE Of CRACKEd dOVETAIlS

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SOlid (UNBOred) TUrBiNeROtOrs 

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FIG. 25.18INSpECTION fROM THE dISK SIdE SURfACES

FIG. 25.17MUlTIplE ANGlE BEAM INSpECTION fOR Off-AXIS plANAR REflECTORS

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FIG. 25.19TYpICAl AIR GAp pICKUp VENTIlATEd GENERATOR ROTOR

GeNerAtOr ROtOr RetAiNiNG RiNGs

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GeNerAtOr ROtOr TOOtH-TOP CrAcKiNG

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FIG. 25.21TOOTH TEE-TOp CONfIGURATION (lEfT) ANd lOAdING (RIGHT)

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 AteriAl PrOPerties M CHArActeriZAtiON

FIG. 25.23MINIATURE SAMplER INSIdE A ROTOR BORE

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NON-destrUctiVe INsPectiON MetHOds

UrBiNe DesiGN ANd COmPONeNt T OVerVieW

UrBiNe COmPONeNts ReQUiriNG T PeriOdic LiFe AssessmeNt

isK Rim BlAde AttAcHmeNt D DOVetAils

SOlid (UNBOred) TUrBiNeROtOrs

GeNerAtOr ROtOr RetAiNiNG RiNGs

GeNerAtOr ROtOr TOOtH-TOP CrAcKiNG

AteriAl PrOPerties M CHArActeriZAtiON