Location of air in-leakage in power plants condensers by helium test

Abstract

Power plants need to reduce

operating costs to be competitive,

by eliminating correctable

causes of wasted energy and

minimizing lost revenue due

to forced outages. The main

cause of these problems is the

excessive air in-leakage in

condensers. High air-leakage

causes turbine back pressure

to rise, dissolved oxygen (DO)

concentration to increase and

the plant heat rate (CE) to

deteriorate to higher values.

The development of methods

to detect air in-leakage has

involved from the methods based

of foam, smoke and various

audio methods, but it generated

high levels of uncertainty. The

method discussed in this study

is the trace gas method, using

helium (He), which has been

tested in a power plant of 550

MW, with good results.