Success Stor y

Endesa Improves Plant Inspections and

Reduces Boiler Tube Failures with EPRI
Pocket Field Guides
Endesa is using several EPRI pocket-sized field guides to implement good plant inspection practices at the utilitys fleet of coal-fired plants. Improved crew inspections are, in
turn, helping Endesa to reduce the rate of boiler tube failures.
Challenges of Outage Inspections
Tube failure is a common failure mechanism in fossil power plants. Many companies struggle to
manage and implement satisfactory failure reduction processes and procedures due to a lack
of technical understanding and engineering know-how. The key to reducing tube failure rate is
prevention, and the key to prevention is robust plant inspection. Knowing where to inspect,

EPRI Field Guides are

some of the best I have
ever seen due to the ease

what to look for, and what action to take are essential.

of use and understanding

Scheduled outages give plants the opportunity to inspect for conditions that could lead to

content, but also due to

unplanned outages if not addressed. When unplanned outages occur, the goal is normally to
return the boiler to service as quickly as possible. Equally important, however, is the need to
take the required time to determine and repair the root cause of the unplanned outage in order
to prevent a repeat failure.

of their deep technical

their portability and practicality, in the form of simple
charts, flow charts and
photographs. They always

As they balance these sometimes competing needs, plant crews are confronted with challenges.

are appreciated by hands-

Outages are hectic, and time is vital. Quick decisions are often needed, but the information to

on people.

mitigate or eliminate the failures may be difficult to locate. In addition, the industry is experiencing an increase in new employees, who may not be as experienced or familiar with available
information. The global economic downturn is also forcing plants to do more with less.
Also, although ideally, crews should look at everything during an inspection, more practically,
it might be necessary to focus more closely on items that are critical from a safety, operation, or
cost-containment point of view.
Heat recovery steam generators (HRSGs) pose a unique set of operational challenges, due in
part to their rapid startup capabilities and high operating efficiencies. Among these challenges
are the difficulty of inspection and repair, which are complicated by limited access as well as
the complexity of the equipment.
EPRIs Outage Inspection Pocket Manuals
The EPRI pocket manuals for outage inspection of conventional boilers and HRSGs help to
address these challenges. The guides detail the abnormalities, deficiencies, and signs of damage and deterioration that inspectors should look for and record, and provide tools for prioritization of actions. They are designed to be used by any maintenance engineer or inspector
entering a boiler or HRSG during planned or unplanned outages.

~ Paulo Santos, Technical

Services Manager, Endesa
Generacin (ENEL Group)

Believed to be the first of their kind, the guides summarize practical

3.04%. The linear trend of this value has consistently gone down

information for plant crews in portable, pocket-sized (8.5 x 4.25 inch)

throughout the years at a rate of 0.13% per year, even with bad

ring-bound/flip-style books. Information in the guides is distilled from

years such as:

more than 35 years of EPRI research in boiler tube failure reduction

(BTFR), EPRI technical reports, and utility best practices. The guides

(a) 2011, when a single plant accumulated 60% of all BTF due to an

describe basic tools for identifying and addressing failure mechanisms,

almost prototypical OEM low-NOx combustion system installed in

and contain hundreds of color photographs that provide visual indica-

three of its units (downshot or arch boilers), which proved itself quite

tors of the conditions described in the text.

challenging

to

tune

and

therefore

significantly

hurt

the

improvements;
The outage inspection pocket manual for conventional boilers begins
by describing recommendations for a hot walk-down of the boiler. Sub-

(b) 2012, when a severe magnetite exfoliation incident made one of

sequent sections review inspection procedures for 15 specific systems

the best-performing and higher-merit plants accumulate more than

including the ash pit, furnace waterwalls, superheat/reheat pendents,

twice the forced outage rate of the previous year. This was solved

economizer banks, back-pass walls, penthouse, steam drums, dead air

in part thanks to some excellent support received by EPRI Program

spaces, and desuperheaters. Each section identifies areas to inspect

63 and Program 87 management teams.

and describes common damage or failure mechanisms that may be

evident. Accompanying photographs visually portray the areas, with
arrows indicating damage.
The HRSG outage inspection pocket manual begins with a section on
visual inspection, which describes walk-down procedures and inspection of individual components. A section on risk management describes
how to develop a risk assessment profile and establish a three-tier priority system for identifying plant items that have high, medium, and low

Savings in 2012 with relation to 2006, both in terms of avoided loss

of generation and less maintenance expenditure are of 4.42M, some
US $6.01M at the current exchange rate.
Related EPRI Work
Field Guide: Outage Inspection Pocket Manual. EPRI. Palo Alto, CA:
December 2009. 1018996.

probability of failure. A technical overview provides simple, clear

Field Guide: Heat Recovery Steam Generator Outage Inspection

descriptions of the major parts of the plant and how they work. The

Pocket Manual. EPRI. Palo Alto, CA: December 2010. 1021122.

final section reviews common failure mechanisms, including stress corrosion cracking, fatigue, flow accelerated corrosion, thermal shock,
creep, and others.
Together, these two outage inspection manuals identify situations that
require further investigation, highlight environments or trends that could

Field Guide: Boiler Tube Failure. EPRI. Palo Alto, CA. December 2009.
1017471.
Field Guide: Heat Recovery Steam Generator Tube Failure. EPRI. Palo
Alto, CA. December 2010. 1021121.

be detrimental to unit availability, and provide an opportunity to quickly

assess a suspicious situation.

For more information, contact the EPRI Customer

Assistance Center at 800.313.3774 (askepri@epri.com)

Guides Used as Part of Endesas BTFR Program

For Endesa, the EPRI pocket field guides were translated into Spanish
to facilitate greater use across the company. The guides were distributed to maintenance, operations, chemistry, and plant engineeringrelated personnel. Endesa is using the guides to train new engineers
and as references for experienced staff.
Application of the guides has played and continues to play a significant role in Endesas overall BTFR program. At the start of this program,
the associated forced outage rate on an Endesa coal-fired plant was

C O N TA C T S
Kent Coleman, Program Manager,
Boiler Life and Availability Improvement Program
704.595.2082, kcoleman@epri.com
Bill Carson, Program Manager,
Heat Recovery Steam Generator (HRSG) Dependability
704.595.2698, bcarson@epri.com

3002000049

February 2013

Electric Power Research Institute

3420 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, California 94304-1338PO Box 10412, Palo Alto, California 94303-0813 USA
800.313.3774 650.855.2121askepri@epri.comwww.epri.com
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