POWER September 2013 - 24
Considerations When Upgrading Gas
Turbine HMIs
Aging human machine interface (HMI) hardware will eventually
become a burden on plant operation. Obsolete HMIs can cause
problems with connectivity, historical data loss, and hardware
failure. As the hardware ages, the availability of replacement
parts decreases and the cost for these parts increases. Hardto-find
motherboards with archaic ISA slots and obsolete ISA
ARCNET cards can make upkeep of these machines very difficult
and costly. There comes a time when replacing the entire HMI
becomes a necessary and viable option, particularly when considering
reliability and maintenance costs.
Site Layout
Recently, a peaking power plant replaced its aging HMI system.
The site had two GE Frame 6B gas turbine generators controlled
by two GE Speedtronic Mark V control systems. These units were
used for fast-dispatch peaking operation and typically were
started every day during summer peak, running for 3 to 4 hours
each day. There were two local and one remote DOS operator
1. Ready for an upgrade. The customer's existing network
was badly out-of-date, hard to use, and suffered from significant operational
limitations. Courtesy: TTS
interfaces. The existing Mark V Stagelink network architecture
had three s, configured such that each was able to communicate
with both of the Mark Vs (Figure 1).
The existing was a product of the 1980s and was designed
in the DOS operating system. This obsolete technology had quite
a few hardware and software limitations. The software was
no longer user friendly and offered no historical data storage
(historian) capabilities. The driver for the replacement was that
the equipment was so old it was failing and the units could not
be operated easily without this interface. This impacted the customer's
ability to dispatch the units. All of the hardware components
in the were obsolete, and migrating the software to a
modern PC environment was very difficult.
Although the old system was being completely replaced, the
customer needed all of the functions from the original to be
carried over to the new system. The customer also required:
■ Easy access to tools such as EEPROM download, dynamic rung
display, logic forcing, and valve calibration.
■ Off-the-shelf, commercially available hardware.
■ Display screens equivalent to the existing ones, with all important
data displayed and easily viewed.
■ Accurately time-stamped alarms and diagnostics, readily
available for troubleshooting.
■ Easy connectivity to devices other than the Mark V.
System Design
The upgraded system was built around the Turbine Monitoring
System (TMOS) from Turbine Technology Services Corp. (TTS). All
of the existing tools were included in the new software. In TMOS,
EEPROM download, dynamic rung display, sequence editor, logic
forcing, valve calibration, pre-vote data display, control constant
adjust, IO configurator, and ARCWHO are all Windows-based functions
and easy to operate (Figure 2).
The hardware selected for the servers was state-of-the-art, offthe-shelf
equipment, easily obtainable commercially. The multicore
processors and hot-swappable hard disks ensure durability
and reliability. Redundant power supplies ensure that the server
2. Backwards compatible. The new software suite has an integrated
EEPROM download tool. Courtesy: TTS
24
www.powermag.com
POWER | September 2013
http://www.powermag.com
POWER September 2013
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of POWER September 2013
Contents
POWER September 2013 - Cover1
POWER September 2013 - Cover2
POWER September 2013 - Contents
POWER September 2013 - 2
POWER September 2013 - 3
POWER September 2013 - 4
POWER September 2013 - 5
POWER September 2013 - 6
POWER September 2013 - 7
POWER September 2013 - 8
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POWER September 2013 - Cover3
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