Power equipment maker BHEL’s corporate R&D wing is sharpening its focus on technology products aimed at improving the operation and performance of the firm’s supercritical power plants.
As a first step, it has developed, for the first time, a full-scope operator training simulator for training of plant operators in the operations of such plants. This product will help BHEL’s 3 x 660-MW Lalitpur supercritical thermal power project in Uttar Pradesh.
“The simulator can also provide remote training to operators. It can also be used to take up new developments on applications in supercritical power plants,’’ S. Sekar, General Manager, BHEL Corporate R&D, said.
The R&D wing, headquartered in Hyderabad, is also developing creep modelling of high temperature alloys for these plants. Creep is the tendency of a solid material to deform permanently due to the high temperatures involved in supercritical power plants.
“We have developed a mathematical model for prediction of creep strength. This can save creep testing time and costs by two-thirds. It also produces more accurate estimates for the residual life of these materials,’’ he said.
BHEL, which is setting up integrated gasification combined cycle power plants, can benefit from another model of training simulator for such plants. The R&D arm is developing a simulator by taking into consideration all the components in a combined cycle power plant.
amitmitra@thehindu.co.in