Failure Analysis and Remedy Procedure for Cracking of Fuel Nozzles in a Gas Turbine

A common failure in a certain type of gas turbine, observed during the first periodic inspection, is radial cracks in the tip plate of gas fuel nozzles. Here, each gas turbine has 18 nozzles. In all nozzles and in all similar units, these cracks of lengths ranging from 1 mm to a maximum of 14.5 mm are observed. As prescribed by the manufacturer, the defective part must be removed and replaced by welding and machining of a new one. But this problem is repeated and observed in the next periodic visits, and in all units. Depending on the number of nozzles in each gas turbine unit and the number of units in total, these repairs are very expensive and time-consuming. In this paper, the failure is analyzed and the causes of the cracks in the nozzles are investigated. Studies show that the main causes of nozzle failure are residual stresses caused by welding and thermal stresses caused by the start-up and shutdown processes. According to results, a solution has been proposed to release these residual and thermal stresses. After the implementation of this method in 1998, no more failure has been reported by the repair team, which proves the effectiveness of this solution. Since this paper has been prepared based on technical reports from the years between 1996 and 1998, the cited references of this paper are these technical reports.     

A hybrid fuzzy-ontology based intelligent system to determine level of severity and treatment recommendation for Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia

This paper deals with application of fuzzy intelligent systems in diagnosing severity level and recommending appropriate therapies for patients having Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia. Such an intelligent system can have remarkable impacts on correct diagnosis of the disease and reducing risk of mortality. This system captures various factors from the patients using two modules. The first module determines severity level of the Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia and the second module, which is a decision making unit, obtains output of the first module accompanied by some external knowledge and makes an appropriate treatment decision based on its ontology model and a fuzzy type-1 system. In order to validate efficiency and accuracy of the developed system, a case study is conducted by 44 participants. Then the results are compared with the recommendations of a panel of experts on the experimental data. Then precision and accuracy of the results were investigated based on a statistical analysis.     

SPME/GC-MS characterization of volatile compounds of Iranian traditional dried Kashk

The volatile aromatic components in cow’s or sheep’s milk Kashk samples collected from 11 regions of Iran were extracted by solid-phase micro-extraction and analyzed by GC/MS. Alkenes, aldehydes, free fatty acids, esters, terpenes, alcohols, sulfur compounds, and ketones were the most frequently used compounds in samples. Same volatile compounds were identified in sheep’s and cows’ milk Kashk, whereas the numbers of compounds were different. The results from principle component analysis (PCA), performed to distinguish flavor from different regions, showed that Kashk samples are divided into three groups, in which flavor of some regions in two groups is affected by ingredients.     

Beyond contracts for concurrency

SCOOP is a concurrent programming language with a new semantics for contracts that applies equally well in concurrent and sequential contexts. SCOOP eliminates race conditions and atomicity violations by construction. However, it is still vulnerable to deadlocks. In this paper we describe how far contracts can take us in verifying interesting properties of concurrent systems using modular Hoare rules and show how theorem proving methods developed for sequential Eiffel can be extended to the concurrent case. However, some safety and liveness properties depend upon the environment and cannot be proved using the Hoare rules. To deal with such system properties, we outline a SCOOP Virtual Machine (SVM) as a fair transition system. The SVM makes it feasible to use model-checking and theorem proving methods for checking global temporal logic properties of SCOOP programs. The SVM uses the Hoare rules where applicable to reduce the number of steps in a computation. P. J. Brooke, R. F. Paige and Dong Jin Song This work was conducted under an NSERC Discovery grant.     

Optimization of Gas Nozzles Geometry in Dual-Fuel Burners of Power Stations

Thermal power required by boilers in steam power stations is supplied through gas or heavy oil fueled burners. Incorrect functioning of these burners results, on one hand, in their inability to supply the utility’s needed steam and, on the other hand, in imposing damages to various parts of the boiler and burner’s structure itself. The present paper investigates problems related to the burners used in the boilers of Shazand 325 MW power station in Arak. Gas-fueled nozzles of these boilers had suffered burns, so that a large number of them would have to be either repaired or replaced in every six-monthly maintenance cycle. These difficulties are caused partly by design errors and partly by incorrect commissioning of these burners. In this paper, the burners’ faults are investigated from the following viewpoints: (1) Statistical assessment of failures. (2) Investigation of trend in the nozzles failure and microstructure changes during operations. (3) Calculation of nozzles temperature when using heavy oil and natural gas fuels. Investigations leading to solutions providing new designs for nozzles in this paper and later evaluation of temperature of the new nozzles in various conditions using natural gas and heavy oil fuels have been carried out.     

Optimum K-coverage in Wireless Sensor Network with no Redundant Node by Cellular Learning Automata

Wireless Personal Communications - Wireless Sensor Networks have been widely considered as one of the most important technologies for the twenty-first century. Thus, the coverage and energy...     

Fischer-Tropsch synthesis by reduced graphene oxide nanosheets supported cobalt catalysts: role of support and metal nanoparticle size on catalyst activity and products selectivity

In this paper,a series of cobalt catalysts supported on reduced graphene oxide(rGO)nanosheets with the loading of 5,15 and 30 wt-%were provided by the impregnation method.The activity of the prepared catalysts is evaluated in the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis(FTS).The prepared catalysts were carefully characterized by nitrogen adsorption-desorption,hydrogen chemisorption,X-ray diffraction,Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy,Raman spectroscopy,temperature programmed reduction,transmission electron microscopy,and field emission scanning electron microscopy techniques to confirm that cobalt particles were greatly dispersed on the rGO nanosheets.The results showed that with increasing the cobalt loading on the rGO support,the carbon defects are increased and as a consequence,the reduction of cobalt is decreased.The FTS activity results showed that the cobalt-time yield and turnover frequency passed from a maximum for catalyst with the Co0 average particle size of 15 nm due to the synergetic effect of cobalt reducibility and particle size.The products selectivity results indicated that the methane selectivity decreases,whereas the C5+selectivity raises with the increasing of the cobalt particle size,which can be explained by chain propagation in the primary chain growth reactions.     

Failure analysis of gas turbine generator cooling fan for 14° and 19° — blades angle of attack

In gas turbine power plants, a fan is used as a cooling system to dissipate generated heat in coils (copper conductors) and generator electric circuits at the end sides of its rotor. In some cases, fracture of blades causes short circuit between rotor and stator and consequently generator explosion and made lot of financial problems. The fracture of cooling fan blades has been occurred five times at the turbine side of the generator in our case of study, just 100 hr after resuming operation after overhaul. Using numerical analysis as well as laboratory investigation — includes visual inspections, metallography and SEM — can help better finding failure problems that cause blade failures. A series of numerical analysis was performed to diagnose the cause of failure possibility. CFD analysis is used to study the airflow distribution in order to observe probable separation phenomenon and pressure forces that they are imposed to fan blades due to operation. A finite element method was utilized to determine the stresses and dynamic characteristics of the fan blade (natural frequencies, stresses and vibrations).     

Experimental characterization of fracture of glass fiber reinforced composites laminates subjected to freeze‐thaw cycles

The simultaneous effect of moisture and freeze‐thaw cycle on the mechanical behavior of glass/epoxy composites laminates is experimentally investigated. The study is planned in order to simulate the detrimental presence of humidity due to rainfall in surface damage of composite structures operating in cold weather. Different mechanisms governing the monotonic response of specimens subjected to freeze‐thaw cycles are pointed out by taking advantages of SEM images. Comparing SEM images taken from dry and wet specimens shows that the failure mechanisms such as matrix cracking and delamination are vastly activated around the notched region when the material is exposed to humidity and freeze‐thaw cycle. The load‐displacement response of examined specimens, namely the linear response, is remarkably altered under these conditions. A reduction of approximately 40% in ultimate load and 30% in slope of tangent line of load‐displacement curves is identified after 100 cycles of freeze‐thaw as well as more than 20% decrease of strain energy release rate.