Integrated management system for piping stabilization

[INQ. NO. 1407M20] KLES’s PLUMBER, as an integrated management system for piping stabilization, is designed to monitor the 3-D behavior of plant pipes in operation in a real-time basis under high temperature and pressure, including the temperature of pipelines and the state of piping support devices by installing PLUMBER on the parts from a boiler or a turbine.

And it is the best solution for plumbing integrity evaluation for generating units and securing the safety, by managing and monitoring the system remotely after constructing the relevant database including the drawings and history management of plumbing and piping support devices.

There are many necessities for a versatile system. Due to the operating condition of base load unit, which is operated under severe service conditions with high temperature and pressure for a long period, there might be material degradation, mechanical degradation and deformation taking place in the pipelines connecting the turbine of the generating unit with the boiler. Moreover, the thermal expansion and shrinkage due to frequent vibration and repetition of start and stop may cause interference to the piping and stress concentration, which may lead to turbine vibration or damage to the joints of the super heater.

The hangers installed in power plants enable measurement that is only one-dimensional (Y-axis direction) displacement. Currently, piping management at each power plant is limited to recording related to hanger guidelines before and after O/H, so that the 3-D displacement occurring in pipelines during operation may not be detected, which leads to impracticability of preparing basic preventive measures and dependence on short-term maintenance.

Even though many piping support devices, such as hangers and snubbers, are installed at each power plant in order to support the self-load and thermal expansion load in operation, proper management is not carried out due to lack of awareness and of management for piping support devices.

Most pipelines are installed in geometric 3-D structure. In cases where pipelines fail to expand according to the design, or they are expanded excessively due to false operation of piping support devices, interference of structures or design fault of plumbing, serious economic damage may take place due to shut down and accidental maintenance caused by unexpected damage to pipelines including cracks and ruptures. It is feared that safety accidents may take place as most of the piping support devices are installed in danger areas such as high places or hot places.

Operators can secure piping integrity on the basis of prediction of vulnerable points and countermeasures. It is possible to secure piping integrity on the basis of predicting vulnerable points and countermeasures through comparative analyses between measured displacement acquired from the 3-D displacement measuring instrument and initially designed displacement.

By minimizing the access of workers to high places, the solution reduces the occurrence of safety accidents in advance. Most piping support devices are installed in danger areas such as high places or hot places where maintenance checks are not easy and there is quite a high possibility of safety accidents, so that such accidents may be prevented by checking hangers through IP cameras.

This system monitors the pipelines and piping support devices on a real-time basis. The stability may be secured by designating weak points through interpretation of plumbing stress and analyzing collected data through real-time monitoring of degradation degree and temperature at major parts of pipelines, including the condition of piping support devices.

And it has been ascertained that damage to hangers occurs repeatedly as the hangers are replaced in the short run without cause analysis in case of damage to piping support devices and abnormal displacement. In order to prevent recurrence of damage and evaluate integrity of piping and support devices, it is important to carry out 3-D displacement analysis for the entire plumbing.