On January 30th, Doosan Enerbility announced that it had signed a contract with Korea Southern Power (KOSPO) to conduct lifetime extension work on six gas turbine rotors. The rotor is a cylindrical structure composed of multiple rotating blades. As a key component of gas turbines, the rotor operates in high-temperatures that go up to 1300℃ or higher and rotates at high speeds, going as fast as 3600 times per minute. Upon receiving lifetime extension, the gas turbines will be operable for approximately ten more years.
Lifetime extension of gas turbine rotors is gaining attention as an effective way to optimize the plant maintenance costs, but as it is work that requires the highest level of technical expertise, this has been an area that was mostly dominated by global original equipment manufacturers. In 2019, Doosan Enerbility succeeded in developing its very own gas turbine model and received widespread recognition for its technological expertise, leading to the receipt of the order from KOSPO in 2022 for lifetime extension work on two rotors. Since then, efforts were made continuously with the Korean domestic gas turbine industry to strengthen project delivery capabilities, which in turn led to the additional new order intake.
Doosan Enerbility will be directly handling the entire lifetime extension process at its Changwon plant, including the full disassembly, remaining lifetime assessment, disk replacement and reassembly of the rotors. As the entire process will be carried out locally, it will be possible to respond much more swiftly to the customers’ various needs. Furthermore, high-speed balancing* of rotors with the blade attachments will be specially carried out for the purpose of early detection of vibrations throughout the entire speed range, where the maximum speed is set as 3600rpm. This will ultimately help to minimize vibrations at the sites.* In accordance with the ISO 21940-12 requirements, the lifetime extension of gas turbine rotors, which involves high-speed balancing, should have the effect of resolving any imbalances.
“This new order is truly significant as it has proven once again the competitiveness of our Korean gas turbine industry and it also provides us with the opportunity to further upgrade our technological expertise. We aim to successfully carry out this project together with Korea Southern Power(KOSPO) and our other partners in the domestic gas turbine industry, and we will be using this as a foothold to actively target the global market for gas turbine lifetime extension services,” said Seungwoo Sohn, CEO of Doosan Enerbility’s Power Services Business Group.
In 2022, Doosan Enerbility had signed a business agreement with KOSPO and 17 small-to-medium sized local companies specializing in the gas turbine business as part of its efforts to effectively target the global gas turbine services market. Currently, a number of local partner companies are participating in the main lifetime extension work, such as the rotor bolt assembly and compressor blade-related work, and plans are in place to gradually expand the scope of cooperation even further.
