Cause analysis of the Fire caught in the Thermal Isolation Zone of a Steam Turbine, Case Study [Analisis de causas del incendio en la zona de aislamiento termico de una turbina de vapor, caso de estudi]

During the last few years, CIATEQ A.C. has provided services and maintenance to different gas processing facilities. Recently, an incident occurred in one of the steam turbines. The incident was the fire caught in an Elliott SRV8DF turbine in the thermal isolation zone. Nevertheless, the causes can vary. One of them could be the oil leak and the high temperature of the turbine casing. The restriction to this cause is that the system was isolated by mineral wool whose ignition point is above 1,000 °C after 120 minutes of exposure time. Under these circumstances and considering that the system should be completely isolated from oxidizing air, the likelihood of the incident occurrence was quite low. When this type of problem occurs, there are economic losses by unplanned stops or catastrophic damages to the facilities. For this reason, this paper presents a theoretical study showing the operation conditions, showing which would be the most likely for the equipment to originate the fire. The results will be used for experimental corroboration in future studies