Model-Based Condition Monitoring of Gas range of high-accuracy software models, derived through statistical

analysis of operational data, has been developed that encapsulate the

Turbines for Power Generation Duty behavior of a healthy gas turbine during its starting and initial running
periods. This period of operation was chosen due to the fact that the gas
turbine experiences higher stress and passes through its most dynamic
C. Booth, J.R. McDonald, P. Donald, N. Lines,
states of operation during these phases, hence, incipient problems are
N. Cooke, C. Smith more likely to present themselves during such periods of operation.
Author Affiliation: Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre, These models embody the interrelationships inherent between many of
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, U.K.; Rolls-Royce Industrial Gas the measurement parameters from the turbine. Examples of healthy and
Turbines, Ansty, Coventry, U.K.; Rolls-Royce Strategic Systems Engi- anomalous starts for the application gas turbine are illustrated in Figure
neering, Derby, U.K. 1 (note that, for the purposes of clarity, only a subset of the parameters
Keywords: Condition monitoring, gas turbines, dynamic system analyzed by the software is included).
modeling, model-based analysis. The inputs to the models consist of a number of measured parame-
Introduction: Condition monitoring of electrical plants is becom- ters and the outputs of the models consist of estimates of other key pa-
ing increasingly important to electric utilities, independent power pro- rameters, produced from a model-synthesis of the inputs. This work is
ducers, and operators/maintainers of plants. In the contemporary based on a generic technique previously demonstrated in [1]. The ana-
environment, market deregulation and liberalization are resulting in the lyzed parameters consist of a reduced set of key parameters with re-
proliferation of distributed and embedded generation. Consequently, in spect to engine health (shaft speeds, stage inlet and outlet pressures and
many parts of the world it is anticipated that there will be a gradual shift temperatures, total fuel flow and engine load), which have been identi-
from a relatively small number of large-scale, centralized generation fied in conjunction with the industrial project partners. This work is re-
sources towards a relatively large number of smaller-scale (e.g., 100 lated to and builds upon other activities in this field [2]-[5].
kW - 100 MW) generation units. The developed models are used within the software to compare ex-
Gas turbines are expected to play a significant part in acting as the pected healthy behavior with that observed from the actual turbineif dif-
prime movers of such generation systems. Accordingly, condition ferences in expected and actual behavior is observed, then the user is
monitoring is extremely important for the gas turbine, in order to: informed that a general anomaly existswhich may warrant further inves-
reduce the frequency/severity of in-service failures; tigation and/or a maintenance outage. The source of the anomaly (in terms
increase service life; of the parameter(s) exhibiting anomalous behavior) can be communicated
improve operational safety and profitability; to the user, thus refining the subsequent investigative procedures. As avail-
reduce repair and maintenance costs; able operational and diagnostic knowledge relating to the gas turbine in-
obtain economic and contractual benefits, for example, through creases, it is intended that the software will be refined and extended to
the provision of enhanced availability guarantees, avoidance of include prognostic, diagnostic, and remedial output information.
unplanned outage penalty costs, etc.; Gas Turbine Model Development: Modeling techniques have
decrease repair and maintenance times through preplanning and been investigated with the objective of encapsulating healthy gas tur-
advance knowledge of requirements; bine behavior in terms of the parameters of interest and their
reduce and optimize spares holding through advance knowledge interrelationships. Where appropriate, standard correction factors [6]
of maintenance and repair requirements. have been applied to the relevant parameters before use in the model de-
This letter describes the development and operation of condition velopment process in order to eliminate the effects of changes in ambi-
monitoring functionality for industrial gas turbines used to drive a gen- ent temperature and pressure conditions.
erating unit rated at up to 50 MW. The approach adopted consisted of performing standard correlation
Description of Developed Functions: The software functions have analysis on the parameter set and plotting of parameter pairs in order to
been developed using a combination of data recorded from in-service confirm the existence of both linear (verified by linear correlation tests)
gas turbines and data obtained from a thermodynamic gas-turbine sim- and nonlinear (verified by graphical visualization) interrelationships be-
ulator, which has been developed by the industrial project partners. A tween several of the parameters and to establish sensible input-output
configurations for each of the mod-
els. Each of the models are realized
as multi-input (typically 3-5 in-
puts), single-output configurations.
Following on from this, two
distinct modeling approaches
were tested: statistical regression
techniques and artificial neural
network (ANN) techniques. The
main benefit of statistical tech-
niques is that an explicit equation,
relating the inputs with the de-
pendent variable (the output) and
which is simple to embed within
software, is produced. The bene-
fits of ANNs include the fact that
they can model highly nonlinear
relationships and they are gener-
ally more robust and resistant to
noise than their statistically based
counterparts, however, their repre-
sentation is as a black box and
the model is not explicit. Accord-
ingly, a comparison of the accu-
Figure 1. Healthy and anomalous gas turbine starts (only a subset of parameters are shown for illustrative purposes) racy of each of the techniques was
carried out, with each technique

62 0272-1724/01/$10.002001 IEEE IEEE Power Engineering Review, April 2001

being tested on identical data and modeling tasks.
The scope of this letter does not warrant a presentation of the de-
tailed experimental procedure. In summary, it has been established that
a combination of linear, quadratic, and cubic statistical regression tech-
niques provides performance generally on a par with or greater than
that of the ANNs in terms of levels of accuracy and generality of the
models. Another reason for the high performance of statistical tech-
niques is that the application domain is specific and focused upon a sin-
gle item of plantANNs may become more applicable when this work
progresses to analyzing the performance of several items of plant and
more generic models are required. Thus, a decision was made to pro-
ceed with statistically based techniques at this stage. As this work de-
velops in future, other modeling techniques such as ANNs may be
employed. For completeness, a generic example of a combined multi-
ple regression equation, similar to those used within the anomaly detec-
tion software, is included below
y = a0 + a1 xz + a2 x 2 + a3 x 3 ,
where:
y is the predicted parameter (in this case, a gas turbine measure-
ment parameter);
a , a , and a are constants (typically calculated using the least
0 1 3
squares error minimization method) providing the best regres-
sion performance for the equation;
x and z are the explanatory, or predictor, variables (in this case,
other measurements taken from the gas turbine).
For more information on general statistics and regression techniques,
refer to [7].
Processing of the Model Outputs: The outputs of the models (i.e.,
the estimated parameter values) are analyzed in conjunction with the
values measured from the actual gas turbine. The objective is to estab-
lish whether a significant difference exists between the estimated and
observed behavior. The approach adopted is to integrate the instanta-
neous absolute differences between the model-estimated and observed
parameters over the time period of analysis. That is,
N
E T = Ei
i=1
where
E is the total absolute difference between the measured and esti-
T References:
mated parameters, integrated over the period of analysis;
E is the absolute instantaneous difference calculated between a
i works for condition monitoring of electrical plant, Neurocomputing J.,
single measured and estimated sample, i;
N is the total number of samples taken over the period of analysis.
Effectively, this technique results in a measure of the area between the
actual parameter trace and the model-estimated trace (in mathematical
terms, a numerical integration of the area between two curves between
two limits on the x-axis is performed).
Example of Operation: The anomaly in this case represents a re-
duction in the conductance of the main fuel valve by approximately
20%. The normal and anomalous starts are those represented graphi-
cally in Figure 1. From this plot, it is clear that there are no immediately
significant differences between the parameter envelopes over the
start-up periods. Upon closer examination, however, it is evident that
there are slight differences in the fuel flow and IP and HP speed traces,
at around the two-thirds point of the overall sequence displayed in the
plots. The main objective of the software is to identify these subtle dif-
ferences and to inform the user of the fact that an anomaly exists.
As described earlier, the value of the integrated differences between
measured and model-estimated parameters over the entire period of
analysis is used as the criterion for making the decision as to whether or
not an anomaly exists. Thresholds, which have been produced through
experimentation by analyzing the models performances for several
healthy starts and setting a threshold slightly above the upper limits of
the observed models errors, are used within the software to make the
decision as to when the user is informed of an anomaly.
IEEE Power Engineering Review, April 2001
Table 1. Integrated error values for
normal and anomalous starts
Integrated Error Values of ETNormal Start
Speed Torch Temperature Total Fuel Flow
7373 527 3484
Values of ETAnomalous Start
Speed Torch Temperature Total Fuel Flow
9350 1096 8945
For the examples of normal and anomalous starts, the integrated dif-
ference values, ET, calculated by the software for each of the three pa-
rameters, are represented in Table 1.
In the case of the anomalous start, it is evident that the integrated
differences are markedly greater in value for each of the three parame-
ters than those calculated for the normal start. In this case, the torch
temperature and fuel flow (but not speed) error thresholds are violated
and the user is informed accordingly.
This user interface within the software package presents, for each
parameter, the measured versus model-estimated values and the inte-
grated error values, all of which can be presented either graphically or
in a tabular format. The software also stores all relevant data in a log file
that can be used, for example, to perform analyses of the engine perfor-
mance at a later date, to examine the engines performance over a num-
ber of start sequences, etc.
Conclusions: This letter has presented an overview of activities to
date with respect to the development and demonstration of anomaly de-
tection functions, which analyze key parameters from an industrial gas
turbine during its starting sequence. The software modules have been
shown to be able to successfully detect anomalies in the start se-
quences. The software has been developed using a combination of sim-
ulated and actual plant performance data and is currently in the process
of being implemented in the field.
In the longer term, as the level of operational experience and knowl-
edge grows, the anomaly detection functions can be augmented to in-
clude prognostic and diagnostic functionality. This will permit not only
the detection of anomalous behavior but also the provision of informa-
tion to plant operators as to the suspected cause of the anomaly.
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Copyright Statement: ISSN 0282-1724/01/$10.00 2001 IEEE.
Manuscript received 1 September 2000. This paper is published herein
in its entirety.
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