Keywords

1 Introduction

1.1 Smart Power Plant Summarize

The integrated intelligent energy revolution is an irreversible trend in the future. With the artificial intelligence technology developing rapidly, the smart power plant becomes a hot topic that discussed a lot in recent years. It means that the traditional power plant has more choices in improving plant operation, investment decision-making, product life-cycle management with the help of artificial intelligence, which benefits areal energy structure adjustment [1, 2].

Digital twin is a vital tool that using digital method to reconstruct a virtual representation of physical object or system across its life-cycle. Real-time data, mechanism models and mathematic models are used to enable learning, reasoning, and dynamically recalibrating for improved decision making [3]. Digital twin transforms complex product development, manufacturing, operation and maintenance in the real world into the virtual world digital information, which is relatively low cost. Through the digital twin data iteration, continuous model optimization, the optimal solutions are obtained and variety real world solutions are given. Analysis of the data from the connected sensors, combined with other sources of information, allows engineers to understand not only how plants are performing, but also they will perform in the future [4, 5].

This manuscript firstly introduces the framework how to build smart power plant in the process of CHGT D&A for different phases, such as engineering phase, manufacture phase, construction phase, commissioning phase, operation and maintenance phase. Secondly the paper describes two building modes which are forward and backward modes, and then the contents have been discussed based on the different conditions in practice of the power plant. Finally taking backward mode as an example, the paper provides a feasible technical solution.

2 Different Contents in Different Phases

The process of CHGT D&A is including different phases, such as engineering phase, manufacture phase, construction phase, commissioning phase, operation and maintenance phase. Different contents of smart power plant and digital twin would been done in different phases. (As is shown in Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.
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Smart power plant development logical diagram

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2.1 Engineering Phase

The product lifecycle management (PLM) and teamwork are the core of engineering phase. Through the innovative digital information network, the scatted developers and testers in different field are effectively connected to the unified research and development (R&D) data center. Each member can participate in the PLM by data center, and easily extract the latest information related to the product, they can make optimal decision during engineering phase.

The basis of PLM and teamwork in CHGT is to standardize management and control in product development, technical documentation, design process and bills of materials (BOM) through a unified R&D data center. Based on the standardized management and control, more departments can be involved to establish effective R&D and design process, test verification process, quality control process, cost control process and project management process, so as to integrate engineering technical documents for 3D product model and provide necessary conditions for collaborative work in manufacture phase.

2.2 Manufacture Phase

In manufacture phase, the collaborative function of product and process development is established between R&D team and manufacturing team through cloud platform, with product design and manufacturing planning information as the core and digital 3D model as the carrier, so as to realize “AE integration” of gas turbine [6, 7].

CHGT regards overall performance and quality control as the core, relies on the professional heavy duty gas turbine industry alliance platform, integration of product design and manufacturing are realized. Gas turbine product research and development, engineering design, gas turbine manufacturing, turbine auxiliary equipment and other business are integrated as one part. In order to jointly promote high quality and efficient development for heavy duty gas turbine industry cluster, CHGT takes the core technology of heavy gas turbine as the ability support, and cooperates with relevant industrial chain enterprises for independent innovation. The data flow chain of heavy duty gas turbine products is established through cloud platform, which can add and update engineering technical documents related to data carrier (3D model), and provide technical basis for power plant construction in the next stage.

2.3 Construction Phase

The key point of construction phase is making full use of the results of design and manufacture integration. Bringing in the building Information modeling system (BIM) will combine plants project management information, building design model and the R&D digital outputs. By using the Industrial Internet of things (IIoT), 5G and the application of GIS technology in construction phase, the reflect relation between the real power plant and its digital model is set up, reaching the aims of ultimate digital twin [10].

Digital twin can benefit plant constructing in many views. For example, they can be engineering data management, daily work coordination and supervision, work preparation, process monitoring, subcontractor management, purchasing and warehouse management, HSSE (health, safety, security and environment) management, work permits management and background information management. Significance of setting up twin body is not only to realize the reflection between real and digital world, but also to promote the China heavy duty gas turbine power industrial chain. Offering a real-time feedback of power plant operation information for commissioning, and O&M phase.

2.4 Commissioning Phase

Digital twin is full used in the commissioning phase. By using digital twin, all detailed information needed for commissioning management can be pre-defined and can realize the automatic management of the documents, the pre-commissioning work efficient is promoted a lot. On the base of completing the reflections of power plant equipment and system in construction phase, digital twin can realize various digital process system monitoring and simulation. Commissioning staffs will compare the performance of the system, analyse the process value and solve all the inconsistencies.

Like construction phase, digital twin can also provide the plant engineering data management, daily work coordination and supervision, work preparation, process monitoring, subcontractor management, purchasing and warehouse management, HSSE management, work permitting management and background information management function.

2.5 Operation and Maintenance Phase

Operation and Maintenance Phase mainly use digital products of smart power plant and real-time operation and maintenance data provided by industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) system, performance monitoring production and operation simulation is carried out, system fault points are found and optimized operation scheme is provided.

It includes the ‘as-built’ 3D model which is managed by a Configuration Management tool. This tool includes a set of systems engineering processes for establishing and maintaining consistency across Structures, Systems and Components (SSC) during O&M. Different taxonomies are defined at each level to accurately represent the engineering complexity of the asset.

There is an Enterprise Asset Management tool (EAM) which manages all the maintenance activities such as preventive and corrective maintenance. This is the place where reliability centered maintenance initiatives are defined and it also includes other capabilities related to the asset lifecycle management like aging, degradation mechanisms and remaining useful life estimation. The EAM tool follows ISO 55000 which describes best practices in physical asset management [8].

Analytic & Data Science tools and algorithms will be provided to early detect process anomalies, patterns and data trends. This early detection is critical in asset management such as component integrity assessment and condition-based maintenance. As more asset live data is collected, the focus will evolve from descriptive analytic towards machine learning techniques. This will be particularly important to prevent failures and asset health monitoring, that is to determine when to replace equipment or components based on actual usage and operating conditions exposure. Additionally, maintenance tasks reports and information shall be crossed and linked with the predictive monitoring system in order to enhance the diagnose and forecast.

Performance Monitoring manages and monitors the performance and availability of systems. It identifies and detects any degradation in performance of components and prevent failures impacting safety, generation and operating cost. Performance monitoring tracks a predefined set of KPIs and displays alarms when certain thresholds are not met. Performance monitoring is related to asset health monitoring.

Predictive maintenance and condition-based maintenance will be enabled by a platform gathering data coming from sensors allocated in critical components. This platform can be either a conventional sensor technology or an IIoT platform. The IIoT infrastructure will satisfy availability requirements and ensure business continuity meets the standards in ISO 22301 during all operational states within O&M [9]. This will help to optimize the maintenance intervals and determine a suitable maintenance method.

3 Building Modes

As is defined the five phases of smart power plant construction. There are two modes can be referenced to accomplished the CHGT D&A process. One is the forward mode, the construction route is consist with the project forward direction, one phase handover to next after the previous aims are achieves. Another is the backward mode, it is an entirely different method to develop the smart power plant. The original phase is chosen basing on the project practical situation, which is related to schedule, budget and time costs. The beginning of the work can be at any phase. Depth and integrity of the job depend on the resources and data handover from forward phase.

3.1 Forward Mode

As is mentioned in the outline of this chapter. Forward mode means that the construction route is idealization from engineering phase to O&M phase. It means that conditions that include time schedule, budget and date meet with the requirement of idealized situation. Just as shown in Fig. 2. The direction of construction route follows with time axis.

Fig. 2.
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Forward mode diagram

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3.2 Backward Mode

Backward mode is a flexible way to construct an intelligent power station. Without strictly limitation to scheduled plan and budget, the job can be done on the foundation of actual situation. After assuming the target, corresponding requirements are determined for previous phases. For example, Fig. 3 is a typical backward mode which is starting point is operation and maintenance phase.

Taking UGTC as an example, with the establishment of gas turbine test power plant, the starting point of its reverse development is in the commissioning phase. Through the establishment of mature gas turbine, the advanced experience of mature gas turbine in the construction and commissioning phase is learned, and at the same time, a set of digital twin power plants which have been verified by practice have been established. It can provide experience for the construction of CHGT D&A in future power plant tests, and even realize the pre-commissioning and pre-operation capability before production and manufacturing through digital twin.

Fig. 3.
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Backward mode diagram

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4 Technical Solution

For a new project, forward mode is definitely the best mode for executing. For the R&D project, forward mode has a lot of uncertainties. Construction of smart power plant needs to find a proper breakthrough point, combine with the schedule, budget and benefit analysis, then set a good road map. For CHGT project, R&D units and commercial units can perform the technical route differently, the related influence factors are not consistent, especially the research and development unit has a lot of uncertainties. Therefore using backward mode to construct the smart power plant is one of the more practical scheme in actual execution process.

4.1 Process Analysis

To enable the functionality of the power plant life-cycle management, process analysis offers a route to accomplish the CHGT D&A. The gas turbine test power plant of the CHGT project includes the test benches, commercial gas turbine, and test gas turbine. The construction progress of the test gas turbine is closely related to the R & D progress, the results of important tests, and the construction of the test bench, and there are many uncertainties.

In the R & D and manufacturing process of heavy-duty gas turbine, due to the constraints of key R & D progress nodes such as casting of high-temperature components, pneumatic structure design and rotor structure design, reverse R & D is more conducive to the whole development process.

Therefore, carefully analyzing the construction process of the intelligent power station of CHGT, the following approaches will be adopted. Through the construction of a commercial gas turbine, the digital twin power plant is built to collect and sort out the operation data. On this basis, the digital simulation platform of R & D and AE integration platform is built, and the data flow between the digital simulation platform and AE platform is established, to provide an effective guarantee for the operation and maintenance of the R & D units.

4.2 Data Flow Analysis

Through the construction and operation of a commercial gas turbine, combined with the requirements of building AE integration platform with Shanghai Electric Group, the data of civil engineering, process, I & C, pipeline, electrical, and important equipment (pump, valve, steam turbine) of R & D unit are analyzed, and a 3-D real-time platform based on BIM technology is created, and data flow with digital twin as the core is formed.

One is the time dimension data flow, which is connected with the commercial gas turbine construction through the AE integration platform, forming the engineering phase, manufacturing phase, construction phase, commissioning phase, operation and maintenance phase. The data of each phase can be researched in the time dimension, to realize the data traceability of the whole product life cycle. The other is the operation data flow between different systems to collect and sort out the data related to the operation and maintenance of commercial gas turbine, and realize the data flow synchronization with the digital twin units, to construct the operation and maintenance real-time management system of R & D units.

4.3 Budget and Benefit Analysis

Budget and benefit are technical and economic analysis items that must be carried out at the beginning of project construction. Huge investment and bad income are not acceptable for any project. For the CHGT project, it has both the nature of commercial operation and the consideration of R & D investment. Referring to the conclusion of process analysis in Sect. 4.1, it is not feasible to analyze the budget and income step by step in the forward mode. However, it is not feasible to ignore the relationship between cost and benefit. It is also a way to encourage R & D to consider the economic benefits of R & D investment from the perspective of revenue. For example, the success key of R & D depends on the effectiveness of gas turbine operation. In other words, to ensure the effective operation of R & D, whether the relevant construction contents of the intelligent power plant can play a guaranteed role, investment is not necessarily economic benefits, but guaranteed benefits. Through the analysis of investment and guaranteed benefits, it can be determined that which are the necessary options of an intelligent power station, and which are the optional options of icing on the cake. In this way, in the construction process of an intelligent power plant, a better implementation path can be chosen.

5 Conclusion

Chinese heavy-duty gas turbine (CHGT) development and application (D&A) is one of national major projects and being implemented by UGTC. The use of smart power plant has been very helpful to implement the research and development. This paper points out the framework how to build smart power plant in the process of CHGT D&A and describes two building modes which are forward and backward modes. As an example, the backward mode has been discussed as a feasible technical solution. Following with the new progress of smart power plant building, it would be benefit for the future research about smart power plant for CHGT D&A.