Proceedings of

ASME TURBO EXPO 2002

June 3-6, 2002, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

GT-2002-30055

TINTELL: AN INNOVATIVE METHOD FOR BLADE LIFE MANAGEMENT

R. Hunik and R.A. Rooth

KEMA Nederland B.V.

Arnhem, The Netherlands

ABSTRACT
The determination of degradation of first row gas turbine
blades during e.g. hot gas path inspections is very important:
Misjudgement can cause severe damage in the gas turbine or
lead to an unwanted reduction of the operational life of the
blades. A novel method, called Tintell (a Dutch acronym for
in-situ degradation determination during hot gas path
inspections), to improve this determination is developed. The
method is designed to be applicable without demounting the
casing of the turbine. Only small openings are required for
installing measuring equipment. The procedure for applying
Tintell consists of three main phases:
! selection of blades and critical area on blades, in order to
reduce the amount of time required for measurements
! measurements of degradation
! determination of remnant life and prognosis of future
degradation.
Selection can be realised by temperature measurements (e.g.
pyrometry) on the blades during operation, by acceptance
tests and/or by strain measurements on all blades. A new
optical strain measuring technique is under development for
this, applying boroscope holes near the first row of blades
and using the cooling holes on the blades as optical markers.
The determination of remnant life is realised by comparing
the results of the measurements with calculations produced
by applying a sophisticated three-dimensional finite element
model of the blades (based on ANSYS).
With this model a prognosis of the degradation during a next
operational period can be calculated. This quantitative
information will help the operator of the gas turbine with the
decision, whether or not to replace or refurbish blades.
INTRODUCTION
The role of gas turbines for power generation is extremely
important. Nowadays these gas turbines are implemented in
nearly all high efficiency electricity production systems.
Future applications are guaranteed due to the increasing
efficiencies of these turbines realised by the operation at
higher temperature levels. Components in the hot gas path
section have limited life due to these temperatures and due to
degradation by creep, fatigue, oxidation, coating depletion
and spallation. These components have to be refurbished and
replaced several times during the life of the turbine.
Replacement of these components can be very expensive
with costs up to 30% of the price of the original engine.
From the early eighties on, KEMA has been involved in
failure analysis, inspections and consultancy for the gas
turbines operated by the Dutch utilities. KEMA performed
these activities as part of its supporting role for these utilities.
In the past, failures of blades in gas turbines have occurred
with severe damages to the engine, resulting in high costs of
production loss and repair. Nevertheless, there is also
conservatism in the operation and maintenance of
combustion turbines. There is a need for both maintenance
cost reduction as well as risk minimization. For optimized
maintenance the interval for hot gas path inspection and
refurbishment must be carefully chosen. To be able to reduce
the conservatism in a safe way, KEMA (and the Dutch
utilities) felt the need for a reliable prediction tool. The
original EPRI Life Management System (LMS) for GE MS
7001 industrial gas turbines formed a good starting point for
the development of such a code (EPRI, 2000).
A prediction tool alone, however, is only part of the solution.
In many cases the life management systems are based on
models of the critical components, but it should be noted that
this is in general an “average” or nominal component.
Manufacturing tolerances (wall thicknesses, cooling hole
dimensions, coating thickness) and gas turbine operational
characteristics lead to differences in expected life for each

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 individual component. For this reason a significant safety
factor is included in LMS systems.
This paper describes the approach Tintell adopts in dealing
with this spread in expected life.
TINTELL METHOD
As stated in the previous section, LMS systems often
suffer from the fact that life expectations are built on nominal
components and operational criteria. For example, it has been
shown that the difference in cooling channel diameters in a
Frame 6B turbine blade could be responsible for blade
temperature differences up to 30 °C (Rooth, 1997). This
means that despite the fact that a lot of knowledge in terms of
material properties, geometry, heat transfer, flow
characteristics and operational characteristics of gas turbine
components is compiled in the LMS, there is the need for a
large safety factor. Inspection of components while inside the
turbine would mean a strong support of the LMS systems as
the results are meaningful for each individual component. It
is emphasized here that inspection of components alone is
insufficient as it only gives information on the present state
of components. The LMS offers the opportunity to answer
questions like: How long is this component likely to last from
now given certain operational boundaries? It is the
combination of a life management system together with
inspections that fulfills the need of end-users.
Given the advanced hot gas turbine components of today,
with film cooling, sometimes thermal barrier coatings on the
blading etc, it is difficult from visual inspections to estimate
the condition of components. To do this, inspection
equipment needs to be developed that is able to determine
certain component degradation parameters like coating
degradation, fatigue and creep. It is at this point that many
OEM’s state there is no technology to do this. Subsequently
the users are referred to the equivalent operating hours
formulae OEM's provide to them. As with LMS systems
alone, this does not pay respect to differences between
components.
Tintell tries to tie together the results from LMS systems and
of dedicated inspection techniques in order to achieve a
reduction in maintenance cost by optimizing the use of the
expensive hot gas components. Important measurement
techniques that need (further) development to achieve this
goal are:
• Strain measurement (important for creep)
• Coating condition measurement (important for coating
life)
These techniques will be presented below in more detail.
First it is outlined how the Tintell method works.
SELECTION PROCEDURE
It will be clear that it is difficult to inspect all components
of interest, e.g. all first row rotating blades thoroughly in the
short timespan of a minor overhaul. It is important to make
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an educated guess of critical components so these can be
examined more thoroughly. Two tools are used to achieve the
selection of these components:
• Initial component tests (before service), e.g. flow tests,
wall thickness measurement, coating thickness
• On-line monitoring of blade temperature
The results of both these actions enable the turbine operator
to select components to inspect before the minor overhaul
actually takes place as the results are readily available at the
start of the overhaul.
The second step in reducing the amount of time required for
component inspection is in the use of the LMS for the
particular type of components. Knowledge of the degradation
processes in the components, the geometry etc. included in
the LMS enables the user to determine what will likely be the
critical spots on the component. Inspection is targeted at
these critical spots.
Of course, as the experience database builds up, operators are
better equipped with knowledge on the initial components
tests that need to be executed, and the system can be refined.
figure 1 gives a schematic view of the Tintell procedure.
As can be seen from this figure, a selection procedure needs
to be developed to determine which components need to be
inspected. The entire Tintell method is currently under
development and the selection procedure needs to be
developed in an interactive way of combining available data
with monitoring and inspection results that are not yet
available. The paper will therefore continue with a
description of the other two main parts of the method:
Degradation measurement techniques and LMS development.
DEGRADATION MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES
Strain measurements
A novel optical strain measuring technique is under
development to determine the local axial strain in blades
between cooling holes. For most advanced compressed air
cooled blades such holes are located near the trailing edge
and/or the leading edge. Very high resolution images of the
row of holes at these locations will be acquired by entering
an optical detector into the gas turbine via boroscope holes
located near the first row of blades. The optical detector is
accurately moved in axial direction by an externally mounted
translation system. The detector can be accurately rotated
also by an externally driven system.
The motion perpendicular to the axial direction, which is
required for acquiring the image, can be generated by the
rotation of the row of blades often applied during cooling
down or by rotation of the optical head. Acquisition by
rotation of the row of blades requires an accurate
measurement of the rotation speed and software to correct the
image for the variation in that speed.
Numerical correlation techniques will be applied on the
images to determine the mean location of the cooling holes
and changes in axial distances between these holes due to the
local strains. These techniques are well proven in for example
 the analysis of heat affected zones in welds. The above
mentioned strains are caused by creep degradation
(eventually influenced by low cycle fatigue) and/or cracks in
the base material and are of the order of .01- 1%.
If this strain measurement is applied during cooling down of
the turbine at the beginning of every overhaul the results can
be applied to determine which blades must be selected for
further non-destructive testing. The results can also be used
for comparison with calculation of the strain in a numerical
three dimensional finite element model of the blades, which
are also applied for remnant life calculation. Verification of
(parts of) such a model is then possible, which will improve
the accuracy and the credibility of this kind of models.
A prototype instrument is currently being built.
Coating condition measurements
Background
This section describes the use of an eddy current technique
for evaluation of the condition of metallic Al-containing
coatings on Ni-based superalloys with or without a thermal
barrier coating (Antonelli, 1997). The technique is developed
for application in situ and employs fast frequency scanning of
the electromagnetic field in the range 100 kHz – 10 MHz.
The frequency of the eddy current measurement is related to
the probing depth in the coating, that ranges from 0.1 to 1
mm. The technique is capable of determination of Al-coating
thickness, as well as Al content of the coating and thermal
barrier coating thickness. Therefore it can be used as a
quality assurance tool upon acceptance of the blades. Another
application is the determination of the state of the coating
during service, when Al depletion is an important parameter
in the prediction of the coating remaining life.
Principle
As stated above, the new technique employs fast frequency
scanning of the electromagnetic field in the range 100 kHz –
10 MHz. Conventional eddy current techniques are not
applicable for coating evaluation because of the low
difference of electrical conductivities of coating and base
materials which is a consequence of their quite similar
physical and chemical properties.
The following factors need to be considered in dealing with
quantitative non-destructive evaluation of coating thickness
and Al content of Al-containing coatings on Ni-based
superalloys:
• As Al-containing coatings are applied with plasma spray
techniques, they present quite sharp interfaces with the
base metal. The interdiffusion layer of 10 µm is thin as
compared to the coating thickness ( approx. 100 µm).
• The coated blade can be considered as a two-layer
conductor on the convex (suction) side and a three-layer
conductor on the concave (pressure) side, this has to do
with the method that is applied for realization of the
coating.
• Al-containing coatings possess physical and chemical
properties quite similar to those of Ni superalloys. One
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of the possible discriminating properties is the electrical
conductivity (3-10% difference with substrate).
• The eddy current measurements are affected by blade
curvature.
• The eddy current measurements are affected by the
distance between probe and metallic surface. This can be
used to determine the thickness of the (non-conducting)
thermal barrier coating.
Experimentally, the method relies on eddy current
measurements. A multi-frequency approach is required, as it
is necessary to test the material at different depths. The
collected data are subsequently interpreted through a physical
model for the interaction between the electromagnetic field
and the material. Blade curvature is taken into account by
providing a suitable correction procedure. The frequency
scanning eddy current equipment consists of a laptop PC,
connected to an electronic module performing the main
functions for the eddy current measurement technique: probe
excitation, signal amplification, balancing and signal
demodulation. The electronic module is controlled by the PC.
The actual probe is a transmit-receive, differential and auto-
balanced eddy current probe. The balancing is required to
make the system more sensitive to the small effects that need
to be measured. Actually, the system gives a null signal if the
metal on the back side of the sensing coil has the same
characteristics as the sample under investigation. In this way
a large offset signal can be removed. Correct offset
elimination requires therefore a well-controlled lift-off
(distance between probe and sample. The probe geometry is
cylindrical. The probe coil diameter (about 5 mm.) is a
compromise between the desired spatial resolution and a low
skin depth/diameter ratio required to approach a plane wave
behaviour of the sensing system. Figure 2 shows an eddy
current probe in front of a turbine blade.
Sample results
Figure 3 gives an overview of the type of curves (normalized
impedance as a function of frequency) that can be the result
of the eddy current measurements. The graph shows the high
conductivity of a good coating (full of Al in the coating)
while an Al-exhausted coating has lower conductivity and
little difference in coating and base material conductivity.
The values at high frequency indicate the situation in the
coating whereas at low frequencies both coating and base
material have influence. Experiments have shown that using
this technique it is possible to measure coating thickness of a
new coating to an accuracy of about 10 %. (Antonelli, 1997).
This has been verified by destructive evaluation.
The technique has been applied in the field at a power plant
in Ivory Coast with excellent results on the first and second
row turbine blades and vanes of an Alstom 13E2 turbine.
Coating degradation of the blades of the first row to an
effective thickness of 50 µm (nominally 250 µm) was
determined.
 Status
The frequency scanning eddy current technique is a very
useful tool in evaluation of thickness and Al content of Al-
containing coatings on blades and vanes of gas turbines. For
accurate quantitative results the equipment needs to be
calibrated for the type of coating under study and careful
probe manipulation is required for stable offset elimination.
The next step is to develop manipulation tools to apply the
technique in situ. During the relatively short inspection
outages the condition of the blade coating can then be
checked without the need to remove the casing.
Other degradation measurement techniques
Several conventional techniques are already available and can
be applied without demounting the casing of the gas turbine (
for example endoscopy and dye penetrant). The strain
measuring system as described above can of course be
applied as a high quality endoscope. A special endoscope has
been developed to qualify visible cracks by combining the
endoscope with an eddy current crack detection system
(Rooth, 1998). All these tools can be used to verify and refine
the results of degradation calculations.
LMS DEVELOPMENT AND ESTIMATION OF
FUTURE DEGRADATION
Background
As stated in the introduction, both calculation of
degradation alone as well as inspections alone lack
effectiveness:
! Inspections lack effectiveness because knowledge of the
present state of components is of little use if there is a
lack of understanding on the effect of future operation on
additional degradation and therefore life of components
! Modeling alone lacks effectiveness because of the fact it
is based on nominal components and therefore needs a
high safety factor
In this section a description of the LMS approach as part of
Tintell is presented. It is the base on which prediction of
future degradation is built. The description is rather general
as its inclusion in Tintell is the actual topic for this section.
Description in more detail of LMS can be found in (Hulshof
1997), (Bernstein, 1990), (Hepworth, 1997), (Chan, 1998).
Combustion turbines (especially the newest generations) have
blades, which have to deal with the harshest of operating
environments concerning temperatures and mechanical
forces. For this reason exotic (directionally solidified and
single crystal) materials are often applied in conjunction with
advanced cooling schemes (serpentine cooling channels,
turbulators, impingement cooling holes, thermal barrier
coatings, et cetera) to realise an economically attractive life
time. The physical processes involved in the heat transfer
schemes as well as in the deterioration form the base of the
Life Management System (LMS)'s. See e.g. (Hulshof 1997).
A LMS for gas turbine blades consists therefore of the
following steps:
• determine all relevant geometries and material
parameters
• construct aerothermal models and structural models
• measure or define the relevant temperatures during load
cycles
• calculate temperatures, stresses and deterioration with
structural models for different load cycles
• determine operation history of gas turbine with respect to
load cycles
• identify critical locations on blade
• verify, if possible, the calculated deterioration at these
locations
• estimate with the model and with assumed operation
conditions the progress of deterioration.
Commercial codes for flow analysis and structure analysis
(FLOTRAN, Fluent and ANSYS) as well as in house
developed codes form the base of the LMS's.
Aerothermal model
The three dimensional geometry of the blades is determined
by measuring the shape of the airfoil at several different
levels using computerized shape measurement equipment and
interpolating the data. This geometry as well as the main
geometry characteristics of the nozzles and a profile of radial
temperatures (according to OEM data) are used to calculate
the flow pattern around the blade and the corresponding heat
transfer from gas to the metal blade surface. In case of
thermal barrier coating this heat transfer is corrected for the
local thermal resistance of the coating. The geometry of the
cooling system is determined by destructive measuring on a
typical blade.
Structural model
A finite element model for the required blade type is
constructed by applying the commercially available program
ANSYS. The model for the advanced blades consists of
approximately 20,000 three-dimensional solid elements. The
model includes all relevant details as film cooling holes,
bleeding holes, internal cooling channel geometry etc. At the
surface of the model the same meshes are used as in the aero-
thermal model to facilitate the transfer of local parameters.
An example of the mesh is given in figure 4. These kinds of
models require a lot of material properties as input for
calculations. For the advanced blades most of these
properties are anisotropic KEMA has collected all relevant
data for the most commonly used types of material.
For the temperature analyses (and for the structural analysis
determined by the local temperatures) solutions of the
structural model (heat conduction in the blade) and of the
aero-thermal models (heat transfer to or from the blade) are
iterated until converged solutions are obtained. Results of
such a three-dimensional temperature calculation are given in
figure 5. This figure also gives a comparison between
calculated temperatures and observed degradation after
service.
Temperature during load cycles
During load cycles, as start-base load-stop/trip or start-partial
load-stop/trip, the trend of local temperatures determine the
local deterioration of the material. Determination of these

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 temperatures can be realised by applying pyrometry and (for
the steady state part of the load cycle) by metallurgical
analysis.
KEMA has developed a high resolution pyrometer system to
determine local temperatures along a trace on the airfoil
during steady state and transients of the load cycle (Rooth,
1997). An example of such a measurement is given in figure
6. With the system, temperature data of all blades in a row
are obtained. These data can be used to select blades and
concentrate on those blades during later inspections. The
measured local temperatures are used to validate the
temperatures calculated with the structural model.
If a pyrometry system cannot be applied validation for base
load temperatures are realised by metallurgical examination
of ex-service blades. Gamma prime structure analyses and/or
aluminium depletion analyses are applied for temperature
determination.
Degradation mechanism in blades
The main degradation mechanism of blades are creep,
thermal-mechanical fatigue and oxidation/corrosion of the
coating on the blades. In literature (EPRI, 2000) an overview
of these mechanism is given as applied to formulate the
equations to calculate the consumed and remaining life of
blades. Examples of calculated creep and thermal-mechanical
fatigue in 9 FA blades are given in figures 7 and 8.
Operational history of gas turbine
Registration of the operation history of gas turbines is
normally done by the plant operation system. Special
monitoring programs such as KEMA's Thermoware are often
used to registrate more in detail the for LMS relevant
operational parameters of the plant (Laagland, 2001). With
such programs the inlet conditions for the first row blades
(gas temperatures, flows and pressures) as function of time
are measured. This can be a useful tool to generate the input
data for transients such as starts, stops and trips and for the
time for stationary situations as partial, base and peak load.
Critical locations on blade
In the general section on the Tintell method it has been
mentioned that elaborate inspection of blades during minor
overhauls is impractical. It is therefore important to derive
the critical blade areas using the LMS. The paragraph below
indicates the way this is done.
After the calculation of the local temperatures and stresses as
a function of time and after applying the degradation
formalisms mentioned in the section above at all locations in
the blade the area with highest degradation as well as the
kind of highest degradation (either creep, fatigue, oxidation
etc) can be determined. The results for these area are then, if
possible, compared with inspection results and experience
with identical or comparable blades.
CONCLUSIONS
Tintell is a method to reduce maintenance cost by better
utilization of expensive hot gas path components while
keeping component failure risk low. It is a method under
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development because it relies on a number of inspection tools
that seem feasible, but are not yet fully developed. These
tools are intended to measure degradation parameters that can
be tied to the results of LMS calculations. By applying LMS
a good insight is obtained in the degradation mechanism’s,
that determine the life time of components and the way to
influence this life time by manipulation of the operation
conditions, time intervals for inspections and repair, coatings
et cetera.
More detailed descriptions of the diagnostic tools under
development, as well as the results of application of the
method on a particular turbine, will be the subject of future
papers.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author expresses his gratitude to the Dutch utilities
and the Ministry of Economic affairs for their strong support
and funding of this project and hopes that the results will be
beneficial to them all.
REFERENCES
- Antonelli, G., Ruzzier, M. and Necci, F., “ Thickness
measurement of MCrAlY high-temperature coatings by
frequency scanning eddy current technique” ASME
paper 97-GT-1
- Bernstein H.L., "Life assessment and repair technology
for combustion turbine hot section components",
Proceedings ASM international conference, Phoenix,
AZ, April 1990
- Bernstein, H.L., McClung, R.C., Sharron, T.R., Allen,
J.M., "Analysis of General Electric Model 7001 First-
Stage Nozzle cracking", J. of Engineering for Gas
Turbines and Power, Vol. 116, Jan 1994, pp 207-216
- Chan, K.S., Cheruvu, N.S. and Leverant, G.R., “Coating
life prediction for combustion turbine blades, ASME
paper 98-GT-478, June 1998
- EPRI, 2000 Combustion Turbine F-Class Life
Management, EPRIsolutions, Palo Alto,
CA:2000.1000318
- Hepworth, J., Wilson, I., Quentin, G., Allen, J., ”Life
management of first stage blades and vanes for Siemens
model V84.2/V94.2 combustion turbines” , Proceedings
Powergen 1997 Europe
- H.J.M. Hulshof, H.L. Bernstein, G. Quentin;
Development of a life management system for the
General Electric MS6001 combustion turbine,
Proceedings Powergen 1997 Europe
- Laagland, G.H.M., Verhage, A.J.L. and R.A. Rooth;
”Integrated monitoring of Gas Turbines, Proceedings
PowerGen, May 2001
- Rooth, R.A., "Does user-oriented gas turbine research
pay off?", ASME paper 98-GT-429
- Rooth, R.A. Agema, K.S. and Hiemstra, W.,
"Metallurgical analysis of temperature monitored gas
turbine blades", ASME paper 97-GT-212
 Figure 1 Outline of Tintell procedure

Figure 2 Eddy current probe positioned in front of an Alstom first row turbine blade

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 3
Good
2.5

2
Normalized Impedance

1.5

1
Degraded
0.5
No Coating
0

-0.5 Exhausted
Base material
-1
oxidized
-1.5 Crack

-2
0.0E+00 2.0E+06 4.0E+06 6.0E+06 8.0E+06 1.0E+07 1.2E+07 1.4E+07
Frequency [MHz]

Figure 3 Overview of various normalized impedance curves of coatings in different states.

Figure 4 Example of a three-dimensional mesh of a GE frame 9 blade

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 Figure 5 Example of a temperature profile at the surface of a blade, together with observed damage after service (left side)
Temperature

Tim e [s]

Figure 6 Series of temperature traces of gas turbine blades showing a hot spot on a blade

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 Figure 7 Example of creep strain degradation distributions in four cross-sections of a Frame 9FA blade

Figure 8 Example of fatigue damage at the inner surface of cooling channels in a Frame 9FA blade

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