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Turbine manufacturing at Siemens with API Laser Tracker Systems - 15655 Turbine manufacturing with API Technology

API Omnitrac Laser Tracker at Siemens AG in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany

Olkiluoto 1 and 2 nuclear power stations. The third power station should go live in 2009 and will net a city with 1.6 million inhabitants. Olkiluoto, the world’s largest and most modern nuclear power station, with an output of 1.600 Mwatts, relies on German Technology. During the final assembly of turbine manufacturing at Siemens blades are installed to the rotor and measured in the housing. This is a balancing act between optimal efficiency and necessary safety margins between blades and housings concerning just tenths of a millimetre. Better efficiency with the employment of Laser Trackers The steam turbine which is more than 12 m long and has a diameter of 6.7 meters is currently waiting for the final cross section before distribution to Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power station in Finland. The free standing blades of the low pressure turbines are aligned to tenths of a millimetre, despite their mass and weight. “The deciding factor for these blades is their distance to the housing”, describes Stefan Hoeyng, Plant Engineer for final assembly of steam turbines at Siemens AG Power Generation. The gap between turbines and housings must be kept as small as possible, as the larger the distance, the more steam will pass through and this lowers the efficiency. Turbine blades are not allowed under any circumstances to come in to contact with the housing as this causes damage. During the final assembly large disks are shrunk and inserted into the blade´s groove on the rotar. Olkiluoto´s low-pressure turbine has a blade weight of about 320 kg. When the rotor is bladed, it is loaded in the force shelter with excess rotation speed to obtain an appearance of compression. Subsequently, the free standing blades are measured. “The more exact a measurement system is, the smaller the tolerances for the distance between the blades are which improves efficiency”, explains Stefan Hoeyng. An accuracy of at least 1/10 mm was therefore the requirement for the new measurement system. After some tests, Siemens decided on the API Omnitrac, thanks to its ease of use and lightweight portability of just 8,5 kg. If the housings are to be measured in the final assem- bly, the Laser Tracker must reach heights of 3-5 meters and a lightweight system is a lot easier to handle in such tasks. It is planned that the Laser Tracker will be additionally used on construction sites, for example when mea- surement revisions in the power station housings are required.
Press Release from Automated Precision Deutschland GmbH, O6,7, 68161 Mannheim, Germany Contact: Kay Wessin, Marketing, Tel.: +49 621 170 289 0, kay.wessin@apisensor.com