Effective Maintenance of Gas Turbine Power Plant to Improve Productivity

Abstract

This research work identified strategies to effectively maintain the gas turbine power plant as to improve on productivity. The main aim is to determine the effect of a good maintenance culture on the reliability of gas turbine power plant operation, to evaluate the loss of revenue due to high rate of intervention (or failure) in the power plant. Materials were collected from the manufacturers manual, maintenance report log sheet, production report log book/sheets, intervention schedule programmes, mechanical vibration analyzer machines, machine lubrication schedule/plan, Instrumentation calibration manuals and plants simulation model log books/sheets, human machine interface system (HMI) as well as the equipment control and monitoring machine (ECM), self administered questionnaire and internet system. The collated data were analyzed with the aid of number of intervention, mean time between failures (MTBF), mean time to repair (MTTR), production yield, loss of revenue equations as well as responses from returned questionnaires to determine the effect of adequate maintenance of the power plant on productivity. The analysis revealed a negative growth rate in productivity resulting from poor performance of the gas turbine power plant in the year (2013-2017) due to poor maintenance culture. There has been colossal loss of revenue due to incessant shutdown of power plant which also affects the process plants. From the result of five years average yield of Notore historical products cost per day for two major products namely; ammonia and urea amounted to N0.1104B. In other words, for one production year, revenue of N36.4 Billion would have been received but due to high plant down-time for maintenance intervention, the company lost about N0.851Billion in a year. This is a huge loss to Notore Chemical Industries Plc.