B. Hazel, J. Côté, P. Mongenot, M. Sabourin, F. Paquet
{"title":"Robotic polishing of turbine runners","authors":"B. Hazel, J. Côté, P. Mongenot, M. Sabourin, F. Paquet","doi":"10.1109/CARPI.2012.6473347","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents the results of a partnership between Alstom and Hydro-Québec for the development of a new factory robotic polishing process. The goal is to improve turbine efficiency by reducing surface roughness to a level that is unattainable with conventional methods. Three entire axial-flow turbines for Hydro-Québec's Sarcelle power station were polished with this new technique at the Alstom manufacturing plant in Sorel-Tracy as a pilot project between July 2010 and March 2011. The surface finish was lowered from Ra = 15 μm to Ra = 0.1 μm, and the waviness left by numerical control machining was grinded away at an overall rate of 5 h/m2. The reduction of surface roughness from the standard IEC recommendation of Ra=3 μm to Ra=0.1 μm resulted in a 0.5% increase in turbine efficiency. This safe, new method proves its great potential for enhanced surface finish quality, productivity and worker safety.","PeriodicalId":393732,"journal":{"name":"2012 2nd International Conference on Applied Robotics for the Power Industry (CARPI)","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2012-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"8","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"2012 2nd International Conference on Applied Robotics for the Power Industry (CARPI)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1109/CARPI.2012.6473347","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 8
Abstract
This paper presents the results of a partnership between Alstom and Hydro-Québec for the development of a new factory robotic polishing process. The goal is to improve turbine efficiency by reducing surface roughness to a level that is unattainable with conventional methods. Three entire axial-flow turbines for Hydro-Québec's Sarcelle power station were polished with this new technique at the Alstom manufacturing plant in Sorel-Tracy as a pilot project between July 2010 and March 2011. The surface finish was lowered from Ra = 15 μm to Ra = 0.1 μm, and the waviness left by numerical control machining was grinded away at an overall rate of 5 h/m2. The reduction of surface roughness from the standard IEC recommendation of Ra=3 μm to Ra=0.1 μm resulted in a 0.5% increase in turbine efficiency. This safe, new method proves its great potential for enhanced surface finish quality, productivity and worker safety.