Boiler tube failure root cause analysis advisory system

Boiler tube failures are conditions that utilities have been battling since the day boilers were invented. They amount to millions of dollars of lost generation and anything done in this field to aid root cause and solution determination would be of great benefit to the utility industry. A computer software advisory system is being developed through a systematic approach to aid in this problem. The advisory system includes two modules: (1) failure mechanism and (2) root cause and solutions. The failure mechanism module consists of a physical failure appearance database, a series of questionnaires, and suggested verification methods. The root causes and solutions module consist of the following: Knowledge-based cause and effect diagrams for all failure mechanisms; probable root cause selection methods based on the failure history and/or potential root cause ranking; root causes verification and determination; solutions and ranking based on the effectiveness and feasibility. The CLIP software is used in the advisory system.