Gas turbine diagnostics under variable operating conditions

Operating conditions (control variables and ambient conditions) of gas turbine plants and engines vary considerably. The fact that health monitoring has to be uninterrupted creates the need for a run time diagnostic system to operate under any conditions. The diagnostic technique described in this paper utilizes the thermodynamic models in order to simulate gaspath faults and uses neural networks for the faults localization. This technique is repeatedly executed and the diagnoses are registered. On the basis of these diagnoses and beforehand known faults, the correct diagnosis probabilities are then calculated. The present paper analyses the influence of the operating conditions on a diagnostic process. In the technique, different options are simulated of a diagnostic treatment of the measured values obtained under variable operating conditions. The mentioned above probabilities help to compare these options. The main focus of the paper is on the so called multipoint (multimode) diagnosis that groups the data from different operating points (modes) to set only a single diagnosis.