Limitations of Modern Diagnostic and Prognostic Systems for a Hydraulic Unit’s Health

Abstract

Modern diagnostic systems for the hydraulic unit’s health play an important role in ensuring the reliability and safety of the hydroelectric power plant (HPP). However, they cannot provide timely detection of such dangerous operational defects as fatigue cracks. This article reflects two main reasons for this problem. The first one is a high level of the individuality of hydraulic units, which does not allow the effective use of statistical methods of information processing, including BIG DATA and MACHINE LEARNING technologies. The second is the fundamental impossibility to identify cracks in some key components of hydraulic units only on the basis of data analysis from a standard diagnostic system usually used at the HPP. Developed computational studies on the example of Francis turbines confirmed this. It is proposed to supplement the functionality of standard diagnostic systems with a prognostic block for an individual analytical forecast of the unit’s residual lifetime based on the calculated assessment of fatigue strength. This article presents the developed conceptual diagram and the demonstration version of the proposed analytical predictive system. The comparison of the standard vibration diagnostic system and the proposed solution as a tool for the early detection of cracks in a Francis turbine runner shows some advantages of the proposed approach.

Vibration monitoring of a hydroelectric power generation unit: Improved indicators of rotor health based on orbital analysis

“…This peculiarity makes the HGUs mission-critical assets for grid operators (e.g., TERNA for the Italian high voltage electricity grid), which often have the need of compensating sudden increases in the electricity demand [3]. Furthermore, the global energy policy is pushing for an ever more ecological and healthier energy production, so that it is reasonable to believe that in the future HGUs will gain further and renewed interest [4,5].…”