14

SULZER TECHNI CAL REVI EW 3/2003 4098

BARNEY McLAUGHLIN
SULZER TURBO-
MACHINERY SERVICES
Recently, Sulzer Hickham a Sulzer Turbomachinery
Services company entered the market for repair and
service of very large steam turbines. The reblading of
a 625-MW steam turbine generator exhibits Sulzer
Hickhams ability to respond rapidly to the customers
demand, find and apply innovative repair techniques,
as well as offer a favorable price.
In early February 2003, a
large Southern U.S. utility
approached Sulzer Hickham and
asked for a proposal to reblade a
625-MW high-pressure/interme-
diate-pressure rotor (Fig. 1) and
perform blade repairs to two low-
pressure rotors (Fig. 2). It was un-
derstood that the effort would
involve specific engineering de-
velopment in order to meet the
clients turnaround time.
The challenges centered about the
so-called peening of very-large-
diameter tenons used in the con-
trol stage of the high-pressure tur-
bine, and the installation of a new
integral-shroud blade design on
stages 9 and 10 without OEM sup-
port.
Challenging Peening Process
Tenon peening is a normal tech-
nique employed by turbine manu-
facturers for the securing of
shrouding to blading. The blades
are covered by a shroud band.
Tenons are used to fix the shrouds
Repair of Very Large
Steam Turbines
SULZER TECHNI CAL REVI EW 3/2003
15
1 Sulzer Hickham was awarded the repair of a huge steam turbine rotor whose blades were worn.
2 The contract also
included the repair
of two identical low-
pressure rotors.
onto the blades. A peening ma-
chine hits on the tenons, thus up-
setting them like a rivet (Fig. 3).
The challenge in the particular
case of this big steam turbine was
the very large tenon size and the
ability to incorporate semi-auto-
matic upsetting procedures. Con-
sistency in upsetting (peening) of
each tenon is the key to a success-
ful reblading operation. This in-
cludes heating of the tenons to
make them sufficiently ductile,
with the temperature of the metal
being a critical parameter.
Sulzer Hickham was awarded the
work with a turnaround time of
three weeks in shop. The research
and development on the large-
tenon peening was begun two
weeks before the rotors were
scheduled to arrive.
The engineering team faced the
following issues:
Is the existing peening equip-
ment adequate to peen the large
tenons?
How can the tenons be heated
consistently and uniformly?
How can the tenon temperature
be ensured during the peening
process?
What systems will be needed to
execute the heating, peening,
and qualifying of the tenons?
Trials with Test Samples
Samples of the tenons and shrouds
were manufactured from identical
material. The mock-up work be-
gan using hand-held torches to
heat the tenon prior to peening.
From torches, the engineering
team moved to high-frequency
induction heating. It proved to be
the best method, however, se-
quencing of the heating coil over
the tenon with the peening ma-
chine became an issue. Several
coils were destroyed in the mock-
up process. Eventually electronic
limit switches were wired into the
system, and the peening process
approached the semi-automatic
regime.
Control of the tenon heating de-
pended upon accurate measure-
ment. By using an infrared device,
the peening was controlled in a
narrow range.
Part of the qualification process in-
volved Sulzer Hickhams metal-
lurgical laboratory. The sample
peened tenons were sectioned and
examined under magnification,
and hardness measurements were
performed.
Peening Finished without
Incident
Following the arrival of the rotors
in the shop and the deblading, the
reblading process on the control
stage began as scheduled. Togeth-
er with a newly designed peening
support structure, the semi-auto-
matic peening system allowed the
task to be completed on time and
without incident.
Accurate positioning of the tenon
3
16
SULZER TECHNI CAL REVI EW 3/2003
2
1
4
6 5
1
2
2
3
4
5
6
3 A tenon, heated
by induction,
is upset by the
peening machine
and thus secures
the shroud over
the blades.
4 New integral-shroud blade design
of stage 10.
1 Tenon before
peening
Heating coil
Peening machine
Shroud
Blade
Tenon after
peening
2
1 Stage 9
Stage 10
CONTACT
Hickham Industries, Inc.
Barney F. McLaughlin
11518 Old La Porte Rd.
La Porte, TX 77571
USA
Phone +1 (1)713-567 27 13
Fax +1 (1)713-567 28 30
barney.mclaughlin
@hickham.com
under the peening system was en-
sured by mounting a laser pointer
on the peening structure. With the
laser pointer fixed and rigid, the
54,000-lb (24.5-t) rotor could be
rotated and fixed at the exact cen-
ter point on each tenon.
New Integral-Shroud Blade
Design
For stages 9 and 10, the existing
blading was a standard peened-
shroud design. It has been re-
placed by an upgraded design
which incorporates an integral
shroud (Fig. 4). Since these stages
are axially loaded, each blade
shroud face must be machined
individually upon installation to
accomplish the following:
To keep the root loaded evenly
by positioning the blade on the
radial line
To set the shroud pitch so that
the row will close with interfer-
ence on the shroud faces keep-
ing the shroud tight
Sulzer Hickham accomplished
these goals by designing and de-
veloping detailed procedures, and
manufacturing extensive tooling
for measurement of the radial po-
sition and machining of the blade
shrouds. This tooling was critical
to meet the timeframe allotted to
loading the stage-9 and -10 blades.
In all, 104 blades were individual-
ly measured, machined at the
shroud, and loaded into the rotor
in just under three days.
Customer Fully Satisfied
Sulzer Hickham dispatched field
engineers to establish the reloca-
tion point of the seals on the blade
ring to center over the machined
blade shroud. The stationary blade
ring was sent to Sulzer Hickham,
and the seal location was modi-
fied. Concurrently, the blades for
stage 9 and 10 were moment-
weighed, installed, and machined
prior to balancing the rotor.
At installation, the client com-
mented on the timeliness and
quality of work. Subsequently, the
same utility additionally awarded
stationary-component repairs on
another 265-MW unit to Sulzer
Hickham.