Overview

Gas turbine performance, performance verification, and maintenance are irrevocably linked in an end user's world. In this book, however, maintenance is dealt with in Chapter 12.

In summary, gas turbine performance verification (testing) is done at several levels. The testing of new GTs, done at the OEM's facility, may be witnessed by end-user reps. If the OEM is supplying a GT package (for instance, the GT and another OEM's associated equipment), the OEM may elect to do a different battery of tests. Sometimes functional, no-load tests are conducted. Load testing is far more expensive than functional testing but critical in cases where the application or engine model is in some way different from previous applications. One small component change or instrument system change could change what was a successful gas turbine system without that change.

In the manufacture of GTs, OEMs sometimes have licensee manufacturers for the GT itself or portions of the system. GE is one such manufacturer.

All OEMs have vendors who supply accessory packages of some kind to the GT system, for instance a compressor washing skid. In testing new GTs or GT systems, these external vendor systems may be "slaved." This means the OEM's test facility has a duplicate model of the same system that is used for their tests. After the test, the slave is removed and kept for the next test and the...