Estimating the influence of intermittent operation on the change of life of a gas turbine

• We describe a method for assessing the change in life of a gas turbine with start/stop cycles and working in off-design mode.
• The proposed method is applied to optimize the operating conditions for long- and short-term planning.
• As an example, calculations of three different loading modes for a week are presented.

It is important that the life of flexible energy equipment be accurately assessed, as knowledge about the pace of life reduction can aid in optimizing the operating conditions for long- and short-term planning purposes. This paper describes a method for assessing the change in life of a gas turbine with start/stop cycles and working in off-design modes. The method was applied to several cases of gas turbine equipments from manufacturers and research companies. As an example, calculations of three different loading modes for a week are presented. This method could also be applied to steam turbines and equipments with combined cycles.