Abstract
A gas turbine abruptly tripped to a stop during its daily morning start-up period. Out of a total of 81 blades in the first row only one blade was broken at its root. Prior to this accident, there were three blade failure accidents in the same plant during the last 10 years. First, the fracture surface of the troubled blade was investigated. Stress analysis of the blade showed that the maximum stress occurred due to the pressure profiles developed during operation. Modal analysis for one blade and the assembly of blades was performed and Campbell diagram and Interference diagram were drawn to check the dynamic characteristics of the blades. The vibration of the turbine was measured using accelerometers during the operation condition. The result shows that the fatigue fracture of the blade was originated during transient events internal to the combustion chamber which was close to the resonance condition of the assembled blades.
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This paper was recommended for publication in revised form by Associate Editor Yeon June Kang
Yeon-Sun Choi received B.S. and M.S. degrees from Seoul National University and KAIST in 1976 and 1978, respectively. He joined Dept. of Mechanical Engineering of Sungkyunkwan University in 1981. He received his Ph.D. degree from Texas A&M University in 1986. His research interest is nonlinear vibration and fault diagnosis for mechanical systems.
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Choi, YS., Lee, KH. Investigation of blade failure in a gas turbine. J Mech Sci Technol 24, 1969–1974 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-010-0614-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-010-0614-y