AFC – AREVA Fatigue Concept AREVA’s Structural Health Monitoring Solution AFC: Modern maintenance concept based on real load data in combination with highly automated and qualiﬁed engineering software Your equipment is subject to cyclic loading conditions due to motion, pressure, temperature or other inﬂuences. Regular maintenance, service or non-destructive testing is executed, but you are always unsure if it is right on time and with adequate eﬀort. A simple failure (crack, leakage or deformation) can lead to downtimes of entire systems. AFC can help to align your eﬃciency AREVA has 30 years of experience in the ﬁeld of structural health monitoring. Driven by high safety requirements and authority demands of nuclear power plants, AFC ensures the high availability of monitored equipment. A simple link between Load History Î Stress History Î Damage ensures a realistic maintenance program. Detailed maintenance is triggered by exceeding speciﬁc threshold values: “As much as necessary as few as possible” AFC Example: “Thermal Power Plant” Components of thermal power plants are subject to cyclic thermo-mechanical loading conditions. Realistic load data are retrieved from transient temperature measurements nearby highly loaded components. The measured temperatures are the main input data for the determination of the local stress history at fatigue relevant locations of the component. Furthermore, the temperature history itself allows for conclusions regarding appropriate operation or possible disturbances such as leaking valves etc. As soon as the stress-time history is known, a cycle counting procedure is applied for the identiﬁcation of fatigue cycles as the basis for a qualiﬁed (if required online) fatigue evaluation. Partial and total fatigue usage factors are determined in a straight forward way. Creep damages are also included, if required. The monitored component is “under control”. Temperature Stress Realistic fatigue usage Example of thermal power plant “Real Load History Î Real Stress History Î Real Damage” AFC – AREVA Fatigue Concept AFC Example “FAMOS 4 WIND” Regenerative wind energy turbines are normally designed for a lifetime of around 20 years. A possible lifetime extension ensures cash proﬁt. The knowledge of real loads and actual fatigue damage accumulation can be the basis for further operation. The simple principle “Load History Î Stress History Î Damage” is realized by acceleration measurement, solution of equation of motion, scaling of elementary stresses based on real inner loads and fatigue damage calculation including rain ﬂow cycle counting within a highly eﬃcient online software solution. In practice, the operator of the wind park can use this knowledge of the damage state for load ranking control within the wind park. A more sustainable use of hardware resources can be ensured. Conceptual basis for fatigue assessment of all relevant positions Your beneﬁts at a glance • Detailed knowledge of components damage state • Cost savings in maintenance scope and intervals • Improvement of availability • Load ranking to ensure equal utilization • Basis for lifetime extension • Meeting authority requirements AREVA GmbH Your contact: visual-testing@areva.com Editor and Copyright 2015: AREVA GmbH – Paul-Gossen-Straße 100 – 91052 Erlangen, Germany. It is prohibited to reproduce the present publication in its entirety or partially in whatever form without prior written consent. Legal action may be taken against any infringer and/or any person breaching the aforementioned prohibitions. Subject to change without notice, errors excepted. Illustrations may diﬀer from the original. The statements and information contained in this publication are for advertising purposes only and do not constitute an oﬀer of contract. They shall neither be construed as a guarantee of quality or durability, nor as warranties of merchantability or ﬁtness for a particular purpose. These statements, even if they are future-orientated, are based on information that was available to us at the date of publication. Only the terms of individual contracts shall be authoritative for type, scope and characteristics of our products and services. G-308-V1-15-ENGPB