EPPEI

Eskom Specialisation Centre in Plant Asset Management

 

In 2012 Eskom established the Eskom Power Plant Engineering Institute (EPPEI) to produce highly skilled engineers at a post-graduate level within eight broad specialization areas at universities in South Africa.  The Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Pretoria was identified for the establishment of such a specialization centre in plant asset management.  This contract was renewed in 2017 for a five year period ending 2021.

For more information about the EPPEI programme, see: http://www.eppei.co.za/

 

Course-based Post-graduate Qualification

The centre at UP is responsible to develop and present a range of post-graduate courses in the general field of asset integrity management. These courses form part of a larger Post-Graduate Qualifications programme and allow articulation between participating universities.

More details about the post-graduate course programme at UP can be found at http://www.up.ac.za/en/mechanical-and-aeronautical-engineering/article/48458/postgraduate

 

Research Thrusts

EPPEI is also responsible for a very active and vibrant research programme in aspects of plant integrity management in the power engineering environment.

The current main EPPEI research thrusts are:

 

Materials characterization

  • The development of materials models for power plant engineering applications

 

Data Acquisitioning

  • Dynamic optical measurement techniques for power plant engineering applications

 

Condition monitoring and non-destructive testing

  • Development of specialised structural response measurement techniques for power engineering applications.
  • Turbine blade tip timing for steam turbine integrity management.
  • Vibration monitoring techniques for rotating equipment operating under variable speed and load conditions.

Remaining useful life

  • Development of methods for remnant life estimation in power plant engineering applications

 

In the area of life cycle management decision support the centre focuses its research around Eskom’s Standard Thermal Performance Model.

 

Current work comprises:

 

Configuration management:

  • Review of maintenance strategies as a result of station cycling
  • Midlife refurbishment and plant renewal utilising “lean” methodologies
  • Techno-Economic RAM Modelling of power station subsystems.

 

Work Management

  • Simulate and optimise outage criteria under cyclic load conditions

 

Spares and materials management

  • Multi Criteria Models for Optimisation of Spares
  • Develop model for optimisation of spares using condition information

 

Equipment reliability

  • Maintenance strategy optimisation at milling plant.
  • RAM Analysis of power stations subsystems.
  • Turbine overhaul assessment.

 

Plant operations

  • Development of algorithms for collating dissociated information sources on site
  • Maximising flexibility and performance of installed plant
  • Station life cycle performance optimised using advanced technologies
  • Distilling useful information often lost in the “noise” of plant data sources

 

 

Contact details

 

For further information about the programme contact Ms Bonolo Mokoka at [email protected] or 012 420 2096.

You may also contact Prof Stephan Heyns who is the director of C-AIM at [email protected], or Prof Johann.Wannenburg, who is the incumbent of the Eskom Chair of Plant Asset Management, at [email protected].

 

 

 

 

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