The recent trend in the steam and electricity production has been both to increase the efficiency of the facility and to keep tightening emission legislation. The lifetime of energy equipment is greatly influenced by the operating temperature, pressure and operating characteristics. The new conditions lead the operator to change these parameters as a rule with negative influence to the facility in terms of service life. Precise knowledge of the facility being operated and the ability to predict the residual life of its key parts in time are therefore necessary.

A new methodology for determining the residual life and evaluating problematic situations of medium size boilers that was developed at Brno University of Technology. Its approaches and advantages will be presented in this paper. The methodology provides the user with approaches for the lifetime evaluation of an equipment as a whole, based on detailed knowledge of the equipment being investigated and the ongoing damage. Additionally, if the equipment is continuously evaluated, it is possible to extend the inspection interval or to achieve a significantly higher lifetime of the entire equipment, thereby reducing the economic cost. If defined criteria are met, the methodology also allows inclusion of FEM and CFD simulations for achieving better relevance of the results.

This work is supported by: Technology Agency of the Czech Republic