Socket weld or slip-on: how the choice is actually made
Two flanges that look similar on a drawing and behave very differently in service, and the assembly detail behind most early failures.
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Industry Insights
Working notes on gas turbine parts, valves and actuation, pipe and flanges, and the maintenance decisions around them.
Gas turbine frame designations, and how to read them
Frame 5, MS7001FA, W501-D5A, V94. What the designations mean, and why the frame is the first thing to establish before anyone quotes a part.
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Hot gas path components, and what wears first
Wear in a gas turbine is not evenly distributed. The combustion path absorbs most of it, and those parts decide how long a machine…
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Gate, globe, ball, butterfly or check: choosing a valve
Each valve type does one job well and the others badly. Most valve trouble in service traces back to one being asked to do…
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Choosing an actuator: torque, and what happens on failure
An actuator is chosen from the torque the valve needs and what the process requires when power or air is lost. Everything else follows.
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Press fittings, and where flame free joining wins
A press joint is made with a tool rather than a flame. The time saved per joint is the small part; the permit and…
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Specifying pipe: material, standard and grade
Four decisions: material, how it was made, the standard it answers to, and the grade. Size range is usually the easy part.
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What a combined cycle plant consumes
Two machines and a boiler between them. The efficiency gain is large, and so is the parts list.
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Planning a turbine outage: building the spares list
Outages overrun for predictable reasons, and rarely the big component everyone planned around.
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