A Drier Way To Clean Turbines

A high-pressure injection system that needs less water to clean gas turbines than conventional methods can reduce equipment maintenance costs for aircraft, offshore platforms, and power plants. Gas Turbine Efficiency (GTE) in Jarfalla, Sweden, has developed a high-pressure injection system that cleans turbines using atomized droplets and needs 90 percent less liquid than previous methods. With this technique, the operators of offshore oil platforms, power plants, refineries, and aircraft in several countries are reducing the purchase costs of new fluids, the disposal costs of spent cleaning fluids, and maintenance downtime. In creating their washing system, designers considered the differences in cleaning aviation and stationary engines. The turbine-washing system is available in mobile versions for aircraft engines and permanently installed versions, for the off-line cleaning of stationary turbines. GTE also designed two models to serve the very small and very large turbines. The GTE 30 A services the small turbines, ranging from 0.5 to 10 megawatts, that are used in industrial, power-generation, marine, and test-cell applications as well as turboprop aircraft, turbofan craft, and helicopters.