Gas Turbine Intercooler Cleaning Challenge
Challenge:
Projectile Tube Cleaning was approached by one of their customers to clean the intercoolers at each one of their gas turbine facilities. The intercoolers at these stations are used in a multistage compression processes and are designed to help decrease compressor work. Decreasing compressor work ultimately makes gas turbine power generation more efficient.
The outer fins of the intercoolers are designed to be air cooled. The fins are thin and thus Projectile could only use a low pressure system to clean them. Over time a significant amount of airborne debris such as dirt, dust, and biological waste had become attached to the fins of the intercoolers. An effective solution needed to be aggressive enough during the removal and cleaning process of the caked on debris, but at the same time light enough to avoid damaging the thin fins.
Solution:
Projectile’s solution to this was to steam clean the fins of the intercoolers. This method combined the best combination of quality of cleaning with a light touch that would not cause any damage to the intercooler fins. Using the steam cleaning method Projectile personnel were able to clean seven intercooler units at four separate plants in a matter of four days.
Results:
The steam cleaning of the intercooler fins was extremely successful. The visual results were clear, as can be seen by the image below. A large amount of debris was effectively removed from the surface of the fins. Removing this debris had a significant impact on the overall performance of these gas turbines. At one of the facilities the performance engineer measured that cleaning the fins of one intercooler added an increase generating capacity of between 1-1.5 Megawatts.
