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GE Frame 9E Turbine Support Leg

Bulge
 MECH N U B ·  Nov 30, 2016

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Thread Starter #1

M mechnub
Nov 30, 2016

I would like to ask if anyone had experienced similar issue. When we turned on the cooling water pump, the
center body of the turbine aft support leg is observed to be bulged slightly.

We do understand the material of the aft support leg is stainless steel and is thin (of about 3mm according to
GE). Thickness gauging and metallurgy test found that the material of the aft support leg is indeed in healthy
state.

We do experience water leak from the edge of the aft support leg in which we thought it is due to material
fatigue. However, we are continuously experiencing water leak from the support leg and the cause of the leak
always come from the weldment. Hence, we are suspecting that the weldment crack could be due to this slight
bulge from the support leg as we only experience this weldment failure during start up (when cooling water
pump runs when start up command is initiated), and not even at firing temperature of the gas turbine which
removes the possibilities of failure due to material failure (high temperature).

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CSA #2
Dec 1, 2016

So, this topic has come up before on control.com:

http://control.com/thread/1476084329

(Found using the cleverly hidden 'Search' feature of control.com and the search term:

+"turbine support leg" ... )

Shutting off the cooling water circulation prematurely sounds like that's the root cause of the problem. Repair
should be rather easily affected.

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mechnub #3

M Dec 1, 2016

Yes i have came across this thread and read through the post. In fact, khairulsulaiman is my superior in my
company.

But the main question that i am asking is whether the bulge on the turbine support leg is a usual sight? Or is it
an abnormality that i am observing?

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CSA #4
Dec 2, 2016

mechnub,

It is not normal for aft support legs to experience "bulging."

It is very difficult to imagine how a solid piece of steel (which is what all GE-design heavy duty gas turbine aft
support legs I have ever seen are made of) could develop a bulge. The aft support legs I have seen which were
water-cooled all had a welded jacket that water flowed through to cool the legs. Now, it's possible the design of
the aft support legs has changed, but given that they have to be fairly rigid in order to support the weight of the
turbine without flexing and require cooling to limit growth to prevent misalignment and vibration, and GE's
penchant for keeping with proven designs it's difficult to think the design has changed much.

However, since Belfort now has responsibility for Frame 9 designs, and their proven record of needlessly over-
complicating and changing decades-old designs and practices just because they can, well, just about anything is
possible.

The real question, though, has not changed and remains the same: How did the bulge occur, what's being done
to evaluate its effect--if any; and, how is it being prevented from occurring again? Because it's not normal, it
could have adverse effects (reduced cooling leading to misalignment and increased vibration), and steps should
be taken to prevent the bulging from occurring in the future.

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mechnub #5

M Dec 5, 2016

Current procedure to reduce the "bulge" is by slow opening of the cooling water inlet valve to reduce the
pressure from the pump. and fully opened it once the cooling water system is running. That is only the method i
could think of as of now.

Replica test on the aft support legs shows that there is no issue with the metal and no metal thinning as well. So
this really has baffled us.

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CSA #6
Dec 6, 2016

mechnub,

I have probably been misunderstanding the query; correct me if I am wrong. You and your colleague are saying
that the cooling water jacket, which is welded to the outside face of the aft support leg, is bulging when the
cooling eater system is pressurized. And, when the cooling water system is depressurized the jacket material
"de-flexing?"

Is that correct?

Without being able to see exactly what's happening my guess is that a very thin material has been used for the
jacket, thinner than used in the past. This may, or may not, be a problem, only time will tell for sure.

How long has the unit been in operation before the bulging was noticed?

There was some mention of leaking weld seams; was the bulging noticed before the repairs were affected?

The situation bears vigilance, and perhaps some consultation with the unit packager.

If I now understand the problem correctly, if there has been no increase in vibration on the load coupling end of
the turbine then it would seem the the aft support leg is receiving sufficient cooling and the situation just
requires diligent monitoring to ensure the jacket doesn't rupture or develop leaks which reduce cooling
effectiveness leading to misalignment and increased vibration and resultant damage.

If you are concerned the material is too thin and may weaken with continued flexing over time then you should
work with the packager to determine a more acceptable material for replacement at a convenient time. In the
final analysis, it's your Company's comfort level with the material's ability to not result in an outage causing lost
production and reduced reliability. If the unit is not in warranty and the packager is unwilling to correct the
situation to your satisfaction then you are free to make changes/repairs as necessary to achieve your desired
level of comfort and satisfaction.

Hope this helps!

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neurox #7

N Saturday at 11:42 PM

Hopefully, there are a response in this old thread.

I've GE Frame 6 with Turboline controller, I've encounter CW Leak at one of two turbine support leg, after this
leak happened I found that Vibration BB1 and BB2 are slightly increase (1.8x to 2 - 3.4x mm/s) and CPD
(compressor discharge pressure) gradually decrease from 9bar to 8.7bar in 4days. Also fuel consumption and
exhaust temp are increase even though the load is still the same.

Is there any explanation how leak at turbine support leg can effect to CPD, or there are any possibility that
causes CPD decrease and fuel consumption increase?

Thanks a lot for your response

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CSA #8
Today at 11:14 AM

neurox,

Most of the GE-design Frame 6B heavy duty gas turbines I have worked on had water cooling jackets on the aft
turbine support legs--nearest to the turbine and gas turbine exhaust. The purpose was to limit vertical growth of
the support legs to limit misalignment between the gas turbine and the Load (Reduction) Gear. If one support
leg wasn't receiving sufficient cooling I would expect to see higher vibration on the #2 bearing, the one in the
Load Tunnel, and closest to the aft turbine support legs. I would also not be surprised of the input shaft of the
Load Gear vibration increased at the same same time.

It's hard for me to find a correlation between lack of cooling water flow to one aft support leg and increased
vibration at the #1 bearing area, though I guess if the alignment between the turbine and the Accessory Gear
was marginal to start with this might occur. But, we really don't know the extent of the cooling water leak at the
aft support leg.

Next, the fuel flow measurement systems usually installed and provided with GE-design Frame 6B heavy duty
gas turbines are pretty crude--and I would be very surprised if you could see any significant heat rate changes
using one of the typical fuel flow measurement systems.

The CPD decrease seems fairly large, but there could be a LOT of reasons for that. And, since I'm totally
unfamiliar with the Turboline turbine control system I can't comment on how the load could remain the same
with a significant change in CPD and exhaust temperature (unless the unit were NOT operating on true CPD-
biased exhaust temperature control: Base Load AND the unit WAS operating on some kind of load control
signal).

Many times multiple issues arise--or are discovered at the same time--and they are wrongly believed to be
related. I suspect that's what's going on here. But, there are just too many things we don't know about how the
unit is operated, what else might have changed recently, what the condition of the machine is, what the ambient
conditions are, what the compressor cleanliness is, etc. There are just SO many intangibles and things we don't
know it's very hard to say. AND, I have seen some non-OEM turbine control systems which were programmed to
put out the same power (MW) regardless of ambient conditions or CPD because the Customer believed the
turbine should ALWAYS produce nameplate rated power when operating at Base Load (and the PLC
programmers didn't know any better, and everyone was just trying to get the Customer to accept the new
turbine control system and move on to the next job). Again, we don't know if you're referring to Base Load, or
some kind of load control reference--there's just a lot we don't know.

Hope this helps--but in my experience, a cooling water leak, unless it was pretty significant, would not result in
higher-than-normal vibration at the opposite end of the unit AND increase fuel consumption for the same load
AND a decrease in CPD. I think too many things are being wrongly believed to be related. (I have been wrong
before, and I will be wrong again. I am human, after all.)

Please write back to tell us how you fare in resolving these problems!

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