Although all NGCC generators tend to increase or decrease utilization in response to changes in the price of natural gas, older units tend not to be used when natural gas prices rise because they are less efficient and more expensive to run than newer technology units.
3D printing has opened up a completely new range of possibilities, including for example production of turbine buckets. However, the 3D printing process often induces internal stress in these components which can in the worst case lead to cracks. Now a research team has succeeded in using neutrons from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) research neutron source reactor for non-destructive detection of this internal stress – a key achievement for the improvement of the production processes.
Turbomachinery International has been a regular visitor to the Baker Hughes Annual Meeting (AM) in Florence, Italy. But this year, a virtual format had to suffice.
There are many reasons for turbomachinery problems and failures. Resonance, for example, is often overlooked.
Many of us have to verify compressor and driver performance in the field. We do a test, read the data, and convert it to flow, head, and some other parameters. Voila, we have done a valid test and we believe our data. Not so fast!
