Various embodiments include a system having: at least one computing device configured to tune a set of gas turbines (GTs) by performing actions including: commanding each GT in the set of GTs to a base load level, based upon a measured ambient condition for each GT; commanding each GT in the set of GTs to adjust a respective output to match a nominal mega-watt power output value, and subsequently measuring an actual emissions value for each GT; and adjusting an operating condition of each GT in the set of GTs based upon a difference between the respective measured actual emissions value and a nominal emissions value at the ambient condition.

A compressor section for a gas turbine engine includes a blade including a platform, a tip and an airfoil extending between the platform and tip. The airfoil includes a root portion adjacent to the platform, a midspan portion and a tip portion. Each of the root portion, midspan portion and tip portion define a meridional velocity at stage exit with the tip portion including a first meridional velocity greater than a second meridional velocity of the midspan portion. A blade for an axial compressor of a gas turbine engine and a method of operating a compressor section of a gas turbine engine are also disclosed.

Systems, apparatus and methods for operating a chiller plant while minimizing or eliminating the occurrence of centrifugal compressor surge. Taking into account chiller design specifications and current operating conditions, a compressor lift point at which surge is predicted to occur is established. Minima and maxima for various chiller setpoints that avoid or eliminate the occurrence of compressor surge are imposed on setpoints provided by a conventional optimizing chiller controller. The chiller system is operated in accordance with the resultant anti-surge setpoints. Coolant tower flow is modulated to enable the compressor to operate at near-surge conditions while preventing the onset of actual surge.

An estimation device for estimating a process gas condition in a system for pumping gas from a vacuum chamber into which the gas is injected to perform a treatment process by a vacuum pump attached to the vacuum chamber through a vacuum valve, comprises: a computer having a processor and a memory, wherein the computer estimates a first process gas condition including an injected gas type and a gas flow rate based on correlation data between a valve body opening degree of the vacuum valve and an effective exhaust speed of the system regarding a predetermined gas type and a chamber pressure of the vacuum chamber.

Systems and methods for determining a pump flow (Q) of a pump are disclosed. A method for determining a pump flow (Q) of a pump includes calculating an inverse of a polynomial equation defining a DP-Q performance curve of a pump, where the inverse is a Q-DP polynomial equation defining the performance of the pump, receiving a pump head (DP) value from a pump head sensor associated with the pump, computing a pump flow based on the Q-DP polynomial equation, comparing the computed pump flow to a preset target flow rate, and automatically controlling a pump parameter of the pump such that the calculated flow rate becomes the preset target flow rate.

Systems and methods for controlling powerplants that include and/or leverage one or more health models to proactively optimize component life or minimize damage of one or more components of the powerplant are provided. In one exemplary aspect, a control system for a powerplant feeds engine data into one or more health models. The health models output health data indicative of a condition of one or more components of the powerplant. The control system utilizes the health data outputs to proactively control the components of the powerplant in such a way so as to optimize component life/damage.

Systems and methods for conditionally performing engine operational tests for a turbine engine are provided. A system comprising at least one processor can be configured to obtain sensor data associated with at least one sensor for a turbine engine. The sensor data identifies a current fuel flow associated with the turbine engine. The system can determine a predicted fuel flow of the turbine engine based at least in part on the current fuel flow and a fuel flow reduction associated with an engine operational test. The system can compare the predicted fuel flow to at least one threshold. The system can selectively initiate the engine operational test based on comparing the predicted fuel flow to the at least one threshold.

A method for detecting blowout precursors in at least one gas turbine combustor comprising: receiving combustion dynamics acoustic data measured by an acoustic measuring device associated with the combustor in real time; performing wavelet analysis on the acoustic data using simplified Mexican Hat wavelet transform analysis; and determining the existence of a blowout precursor based at least in part on the wavelet analysis. Provided also is a system and a non-transitory computer readable medium configured to perform the method.

A method, device, and system of estimation fatigue life of a technical system are disclosed. The method includes computing a lifing probability distribution for at least one component of the technical system based on material property scatter data and at least one damage scenario associated with the at least one component. Further, the method includes determining a time-damage accumulation for the at least one component by combining plurality of damage scenario and damage accumulation rules for the at least one component. Furthermore, the method includes determining a spatial-damage accumulation and a cumulative time-damage accumulation for each of a plurality of regions in the at least one component. The method also includes determining an integral damage including integral of the spatial-damage accumulation and the cumulative time-damage accumulation for the at least one component based on simulation of the at least one damage scenario and conditional probabilities for the at least one damage scenario. The fatigue life of the technical system is estimated by determining a probability of fatigue failure of the technical system by combining the integral damage and predicted damage scenarios for a plurality of components in the technical system based on the law of total probability.

Methods and apparatus are disclosed to determine material parameters of a turbine rotor. An example apparatus includes a rotor geometry determiner to determine a geometry of the rotor, a node radius calculator to calculate radial node locations of radial nodes including a first radial node, a thermocouple interface to record first temperature values over an interval, a first thermal stress calculator to calculate first thermal stress values at one or more of the radial nodes over the interval, a node temperature calculator to calculate second temperature values at respective internal nodes of the first radial node, a reference value lookup to lookup first material parameter information, a second thermal stress calculator to determine second thermal stress values, a thermal stress comparator to calculate a difference between the thermal stress values, and, in response to the difference not satisfying a threshold, a material parameter adjuster to determine material parameters.