Control Strategy Development for Start Reliability Improvement of IGT25 Gas Turbine

Product reliability is one of the main factors to warrant delivery deadlines especially in high-tech industries like gas turbines. Reviewing the historical data of start-ups in a gas turbine leads to identification of failure causes. One of the main causes of failed start-up attempts is overshoots in turbine exhaust temperature (TET) over the predefined threshold that leads to trip (emergency shutdown). Three solutions are proposed in this research to prevent TET overshoots and overcome probable trips. The solutions that are provided based on data-driven algorithms for an industrial gas turbine includes controller parameter tuning, set point adjustment and fast cool-down control. These strategies have been successfully applied on Iranian Gas Turbine (IGT25). Application of proposed strategies mitigates the risk of failed starts in an optimized elapsed time, resulting in remarkable start reliability increasing.