ABRASIVE WATERJET CUTTING OF STEAM TURBINE PINS

R. Moser1, P. Roth2, W. Zesch3

1

ALSTOM Power Service, R&D Inspection Technologies, Brown Boveri Strasse 7, 5401 Baden, Switzerland
2

Waterjet Technologies Ltd, Technopark Aargau, Dorfstrasse 69, 5210 Windisch, Switzerland
3

ALSTOM Inspection Robotics Ltd, Technoparkstrasse 1, 8005 Zurich, Switzerland

ABSTRACT After a certain operation time, steam turbine blades have to be changed due to erosion, cracks or other damages of the blades. Many turbine fleets feature blades that are locked by means of pins. To change these blades, the pins have to be removed. At present, pins are removed by the usage of a hydraulic jack with up to 10 tons force. But a percentage of 5 to 10% can not be removed with such a jack. These tight pins have to be drilled out mechanically. This procedure takes a long time, up to a couple of hours per pin. ALSTOM developed a new process to remove tight pins by using abrasive water jet cutting (AWJ) technology. The main removal system consists of a two axis robotic, a camera module to precisely locate the position of up to 12 pins and a water jet cutting tool. The new developed cutting tool fits in every known gap between two rotor discs and a compact jet catcher protects the next blade row from the exiting jet. The robotic is of modular design, so a variety of different tools can be deployed, such as an additional hydraulic jack. The proposed pin removal procedure is as follows: The pin positions are detected by means of the camera, then the hydraulic jack tries to push out all pins. The pins that cannot be pushed out by hydraulics will be cut by means of the water jet module. The robot remains in place during the whole operation; only its tools will be changed by an operator. With this new pin removal process the machining time is heavily reduced.

1. INTRODUCTION
A. Initial state Steam turbine blades are often attached to rotors with pins. This attachment concept is common to a large variety of turbines, so these pins can vary over a broad range: In diameter from typically 3 to 20 mm in diameter and 30 to 400 mm in length. Figure 1 sketches the location of these pins:

Fig. 1 Pin-root steam turbine blades

Upon assembly of new blades, these pins are made to have a light push fit into the rotors pin holes, with both, the pins and the holes ground and reamed to a high level of finish. The pins are then finally fixed and secured by swaging the pins ends or simply by placing two or more dimples. After a long period of service, these pins can be very difficult to remove. Should it be necessary to remove the pins, they can be driven out - but many can become stuck and "pick up" as they are removed. If the pins cannot be driven out manually or hydraulically, then they are currently drilled out. The drilling-out of pins can be slow and runs the risk of damaging the hole in the disk (i.e. damages the rotor), if the drill wanders or is deflected. Worst case scenario is a broken drillbit that is stuck into the pin and into the rotor. Typically, 10-15% of all pins of an ex-service steam turbine need to be drilled out. Depending on the accessibility, the pin length, the skill of the operator and the pin material, such an operation is reported to take up to 8 hours per pin. It is fair to assume that the average problem-pin of a large steam turbine (e.g. 1.5 cm diameter, 15 cm length) needs about 4 hours of machining time if removed on-site. After removal of the pins, in order to facilitate re-pinning the holes in the rotor disc are rereamed and the new pins are ground to suit. As an example: Recently at a plant in Taiwan it took a team of 4 men three weeks to remove all the pins from one rotor (840 hours).

The present paper presents a novel method of removing the pins quickly by abrasive water jet cutting. Furthermore are presented a novel, highly compact, cutting head that allows for machining the very constraint spaces between steam turbine discs, as well as a compact robotic device that pilots the cutting head. B. Abrasive water jet cutting (AWJ) The abrasive water jet (AWJ) [1] cutting technique is based on accelerating small diameter abrasive particles through a high-velocity water jet. The abrasive particles are able to remove material from the hardest metallic and ceramic machine components. Figure 2 depicts a standard AWJ system and Alstoms patent pending new concept of an angled AWJ cutting head. Alstom cutting head

90

Fig. 2 Waterjet cutting system. The inlet shows the patent pending Alstom cutting head concept

Purified water 1 is pumped to high pressures (300 -400MPa), and a water jet is formed by a sapphire or diamond orifice 3 of diameter 0.10.4mm. Downstream from the orifice, abrasive particles1 are added in a mixing chamber and accelerated by momentum exchange with the water jet in a focusing tube. From there they are directed to the work piece. The function of the water jet is to accelerate the abrasive particles; the cutting effect is produced by the particles.
1

Usually Garnet is used as abrasive

2. DEVELOPMENTS
A. Robotics The pin-cutting unit is made up of two linear axes. The vertical z-axis consists of two spindles driven by servo-motors. As horizontal x-axis a special electro-magnetical linear motor [3], which is mounted between the tracks of the z-axis, is used. Figure 3 shows the realized robotic device:

Fig. 3 2-axis robot

A tool fixture fit on the upper side of the linear motor element provides a fast exchange of the different tools used for the pin removal process. It also guarantees a precise alignment of camera and cutting tool. The contact face at the bottom of the robotics out of soft material allows placing the unit on the rotor shaft. Two pneumatic cylinders secure the fixing of the unit. Positioning sensors affixed to the cylinders detect if the robotics is correctly fixed. The lightweight construction of the unit allows handling it easily by two persons. To reduce fog and dirt during machining, a suction system can be connected to the unit.

B. Cutting process Because standard abrasive water jet components do not fit in the small gaps between rotor discs, a new cutting head had to be developed for this application. The newly designed water jet cutting tool requires only 32mm of space2 and is patented pending by ALSTOM. It is represented in figure 4:

Fig. 4 Patent pending design of a highly compact waterjet cutting head

To absorb the remaining energy of the exiting abrasive water jet and to avoid damage to the following rotor disc a compact jet catcher was constructed. The patented catcher is integrated in the process control: An accelerating sensor detects the break-trough of the jet during the piercing process; a security plate at the backside checks if the function of the catcher fails and immediately stops the process if this happens. The main cutting process was developed at the University of Applied Science Northwestern Switzerland, which features the Swiss Competence Centre of Water jetting Technology. Instead of drilling, the pin is weakened by cutting a cross into it (Figure 9). With less than 0.5mm wall thickness left, the pin loses its stability and can be pushed out after cutting with little effort. C. Control The control is based on a programmable logic control (PLC). It actuates the several process steps and its graphical user interface (GUI) allows to locate the pin position (Figure 4). Due to the different geometries of steam turbine pins, several process parameters3 can be adjusted in a separate menu. The process is constantly monitored for safety reasons: It only can be started if the unit is correctly fixed, a catcher is connected and the adequate tool is in use.

2 3

state-of-the-art AWJ cutting heads are some hundreds of millimetres long e.g. feed rate, cutting and piercing geometry, etc.

3. PROCEDURE
A. Installation The robot is placed between two rotor discs and clamped by two pneumatic cylinders. Four supporting bolts located at the side which has to be machined, assure the orientation of the prototype unit in relation to the rotor disc. The jet catcher is positioned afterwards behind the pins, which are intended to cut and fixed by magnets. The cutting tool and the jet catcher are connected with a suction system to reduce the amount of dirt and fog. B. Pin Position Detection The whole unit (figure 3) is positioned and clamped between the rotor discs. First the positioning tool is inserted in the tool fixture to determine the centre of the different pins needed to cut. As positioning tool a camera with a wide-angle lens is used. The user sees the positioning guide as seen in figure 5:

Fig. 5 Visual pin position detection for robot teaching

Three circles etched on the lens of the camera allow adjusting the centre of the camera axis to the centre of the pin. If the centre of the pin is determined, the position is stored and the tool changed. With the cutting tool inserted in the tool fixture, the stored position of the pin is accessed again and the piercing procedure started. C. Piercing Process To be able to cut a pin, first a small hole has to be shot into (analogue laser cutting). This procedure is called piercing. The cutting tool is moving constantly in a defined small pattern while the water jet is enabled. The required time to pierce a pin depends heavily on the pin length. An estimation of the needed piercing time is shown in Figure 7. After piercing is finished, a small hole of roughly 2mm is drilled into the pin.

D. Cutting Process To weak the pin as much as needed, a cross is cut into it. Process-related, the process starts in the center of the pin moving with a defined feed rate to the pin border. The size of the cross can be adjusted depending on the pin geometry. Figure 6 gives an idea about the fog emission during operation:

Fig. 6 Fog emission during the cutting process

The noise emission is below 90 dB. The estimated time for cutting a pin depending on the pin geometry is shown in Figure 8. E. Pin Removal After the cutting process, pins are weakened heavily, lose its stability and can be removed by hand or the mean of a hydraulic removal tool.

4. RESULTS
To test the unit and the newly developed process, several experiments were executed at the Swiss Competence Centre of Water Jetting Technology: First piercing and cutting trials showed the feasibility of machining steam turbine pins by water jet. Tests with pins fitted in a block by press fit were undertaken to determine the cutting procedure and to analyze the removal of the pins after machining. These two test series have been carried out by a standard water jet machine. In the end a test mock up was constructed simulating a part of a rotor disc (Figure 7). The pins were fit in by press fit and machined with the pin-cutting unit. All pins could be solved after machining.

Fig. 7 Test mock-up

A significant time gain could be obtained: A standard 15cm pin was cut and removed in 15 minutes. Figure 8 plots the piercing time versus the pin length:

Fig. 8 Piercing time versus pin length

After piercing, the pin is cut into four segments. This cutting time is shown, for two representative pin lengths, in figure 9:

Fig. 9 Cutting time versus pin diameter for two representative pin lengths

5. CONCLUSIONS AND OUTLOOK

A. Conclusions The presented new technique to remove tight steam turbine pins offers a wide range of advantages compared to traditional drilling: The machining time is massively reduced (about 10 min for a standard pin) Pin material influences are nearly eliminated by using abrasive water jet cutting The modular design of the robot allows using different tools for service operations on steam turbine rotors. The system is made for mobile use, so with suitable equipment the unit can be operated on-site

Figure 10 shows front and backside of a cut pin:

Fig. 10 Picture of cut pin

B. Outlook The removal process and the robotic unit are tested under laboratory conditions. Following tests on a real steam turbine shall give more knowledge about the handling and the behaviour of real tight pins. Until now the interference of the pins was simulated by press fit, real pins could react different than these test pins.

6. REFERENCES
[1] Roth, P., Looser, H., Heiniger, K.C., Buhler, S. (2005) Determination of Abrasive Particle Velocity Using Laser-Induced Fluorescence and Particle Tracking Methods in Abrasive Waterjets WJTA American Waterjet Conference, 2005 Trumpf Machines Ltd Technical Information on Waterjet Cutting Edition December 1997 http://www.linmot.com Status 24. January 2008

[2]

[3]