John Downing, Turbine Controls & Excitation Group (TC&E), celebrated the company’s 10th anniversary with a presentation last Wednesday at the 7F Users Group’s 2020 Digital Conference. He reminded the 300 or so owner/operators in attendance that many gas turbines are starting and stopping far more frequently than originally designed for. At the same time, independent […]

Presentations on turbine lubricants and/or their maintenance are oft-discussed subjects at user-group meetings. Plus, you can expect to see a half-dozen or more companies in the exhibit hall offering fluids and varnish-removal systems—all competing for your business. Having so much information from disparate sources can make it difficult for a user to decide on the

If your staff is not experienced in initiating an emergency purge of hydrogen from the generator, personnel at Hermiston Generating Plant, a 474-MW, 7FA-powered 2 × 1 combined-cycle cogeneration facility have a solution to consider. Hermiston developed an emergency hydrogen purge procedure during plant commissioning nearly 25 years ago. It required entering the collector compartment

Mike Dolan, Hytorc’s chief engineer for fasteners, had only a dozen slides and told the 7F audience at the outset that he probably would finish up in 45 minutes. Not! He barely got done the hour maximum for his session. And it was all “good stuff,” including lessons learned and best practices of particular value

The nondescript title of this presentation, repeated as the headline above, does no justice to its compelling content. A simple “Aaron Frost” would have told you much more. Yes, Frost was back in front of the 7F group sharing his encyclopedic knowledge of metallurgy, repair experiences on selected hot-section components, and views on the promise

A major inspection in March 2020 on one of the gas turbines for a 2 × 1 7FA.03-powered combined-cycle power block at Gila River Power Station revealed severe rubs in the compressor and turbine sections upon unit disassembly. The machine, which did not run at all for 18 months beginning in 2017, operated baseload after

The nearly 300 users attending the Week 4 sessions benefited from six presentations that they considered of high value, judging from the onslaught of questions that carried over into the virtual vendor fair staffed by each of the participating vendors. Quick access to summaries of user and vendor presentations made last Tuesday and Wednesday is