Boiler Integrity Management
Pressure part failures are one of the major sources of lost revenue for fossil-fired power plants. To minimize these problems, we’ve formed a strategic alliance with Diamond Technical Services (DTS) to provide a comprehensive asset management program for boiler integrity that’s unique in the power generation industry.
Our cradle-to-grave comprehensive Boiler Integrity Management program will help fossil-fired power plants during both scheduled and unscheduled outages, to identify and help address both immediate and future potential failures.
In general, our Boiler Integrity Management program can be broken into three distinct phases that coincide with the outage:
Pre-Outage Planning
The Boiler Integrity Management team can work with you to optimize the available outage time by pre-identifying areas of concern based on our experience with similar units, by performing engineering evaluations based on supplied boiler operating and design data, and from an understanding of unit operating conditions including cycle chemistry. Then the outage efforts (inspections, engineering assessments, and repairs) can focus on these areas of concern. Before the outage, fitness-for-service models of the critical components can be built to reduce the time needed for run/repair/replace calculations. Some tasks that may be involved at this stage include:
- Development and/or review of QA / CAD drawings
- Review of available replacement parts/tubing
- Development of inspection procedures / checklist
- Inspection and assessment outage workscope development
- Cycle chemistry review and optimization
Outage Services
Changes in the power generation industry have made outage time precious. As a result, to have a successful outage, it is critical to have timely and actionable information as soon as possible to allow for sufficient time to address any issues that could negatively affect unit operation. The Boiler Integrity Management team has been structured to maximize the available outage time by placing our staff in the boiler as early as safely possible, and having a sufficiently large staff to provide actionable information early in the outage. Coordination of support services including scaffolding, insulators, and grit blasters can be provided to ensure that meaningful examinations are possible. Engineering models can be pre-built to decrease the analytical time required during the outage. Finally, the team can oversee any needed repairs or unit modifications. These services can be summarized in the following:
- Boiler inspection services
- Condition assessment with advanced NDE
- Support services project management
- Contractual weld examination
- Code weld inspection
- Repair support and verification including CWI services
- Quality Assurance and Control
Post-Outage Services
While most of the activity occurs during the outage, the efforts made after the unit is placed back into service can have a significant impact on how best to optimize the life of the boiler and to refine future outage work. The Boiler Integrity Management team can provide this in various ways ranging from a comprehensive review of outage performance to root cause analysis of outage findings. Other post-outage work includes the development of long-term comprehensive inspection and assessment plans based on both operating and outage data. Other specific tasks include:
- Fitness-for-Service Engineering
- Root Cause Analysis
- Metallurgical Evaluations
- Failure Analysis
- Remaining Life Assessment