TWI Annual Review - July 2008

Alternative Energies

• TWI is the lead partner in the UK Government INSIGHT project which addresses the need to monitor blades and towers of offshore wind turbines and aims to develop novel sensor technology as well as advanced techniques for data management.
• Establishment of a strategic alliance with a major insurance company to provide technology assessment and in-service RBI to de-risk energy from waste and biomass projects. This service spans initial design review, plant build and operation.
• TWI has been selected to co-chair the Materials UK Alternative Energy Working Group.
• Continued EU and UK Government-funded projects have been won on developing NDT techniques for composite wind turbine blades.
• Projects have been initiated to develop advanced fabrication technologies and approaches for offshore wind turbine foundations.
• A feasibility study has been conducted on fabrication requirements for floating offshore wind turbines.

Nuclear

• On behalf of the Northwest Regional Development Agency, TWI is leading a project to provide business and technical support to nuclear supply chain companies in the northwest of England.
• A project has been awarded by the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency to investigate the underwater use of lasers for removing contaminated surfaces from redundant concrete structures.
• A number of projects have been undertaken to support the ongoing operation of the Sellafield reprocessing facilities.
• TWI has undertaken a number of specialist fabrication tasks as part of the ongoing fusion research programmes.
• Working on behalf of several Member companies friction stir processing is being developed as a remote repair technology for nuclear power plant.

Fossil Generation

• Laser direct metal deposition developed for a major OEM for the repair of gas turbine shafts.
• TWI has formed an associate partnership with a European service provider for risk management services to power and steam raising plant operators including electric utilities, co-generation plants and industrial generators throughout Europe.
• A major Asian utility has enlisted TWI's consultancy services to establish their capacity building research and implementation agenda in areas of weld assessment and weld repair.

Case Study Kapar power station, a 2420 MW multi-fuelled thermal power plant is situated 55km west of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Kapar power station operates with six boilers and related pressure vessels, three steam turbines and one gas turbine. A risk-based inspection (RBI) was initiated to complement the preventive and predictive maintenance activities. Kapar, also wished to obtain approval from the Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) to extend the statutory inspection period of all units from 15 months to a longer period. To facilitate this requirement, risk profiles for the boiler and balance of plant components were required to demonstrate that the assessed components were safe to operate for the extended period. The RBI analysis was undertaken using TWI RISKWISE for BoilersTM Version 4 software, which has been approved by DOSH for this purpose in Malaysia and Kapar is anticipating getting the approval to extend their inspection interval beyond 36 months.