Technical Advisors
We can provide technical advisors to support your boiler project. Are you planning to purchase a new HRSG and want to make sure the latest field experience is incorporated in to the specification? Are you building a combined cycle power plant and need help reviewing and approving the HRSG vendor drawings? Are you planning a major HRSG repair or upgrade? Do you need someone to review a contrator's boiler repair procedures? These are all examples where HRST can provide technical advisors to support your project.
Field Service Technical Advisors
Outage Advisor - Our technical advisors have extensive experience supervising welding, field repair, overseas fabrication, and erection of HRSGs. HRST will provide the hands-on, boiler–specific field expertise necessary to help a client with their maintenance outage. Our aim is to combine our boiler expertise with the contractor’s craft skills for the client’s beneficial outcome. Our experience includes pressure part repairs, liner and insulation repairs, pipe penetration seal repairs, catalyst replacement, HRSG upgrades, and HRSG erection.
Vendor Surveillance – We can visit your vendor to assess the progress on your project. This includes monitoring an OEM’s shop fabrication quality, monitoring the production schedule, or directing a subcontractor’s fabrication of components designed by HRST.
Expert Installation Advisors – We offer technical advisor service to help our clients properly install the products we sell. This helps our client’s avoid outage delays and manage unexpected conditions that can occur during retrofit of new products in to existing boilers.
Engineering Technical Advisors
New Boiler Specification and Design Review - Our experience can help you purchase and install a new boiler that includes the benefit of the latest field experience. Problems found during our past inspections can be used to highlight the need for the OEM to implement design improvements for your new HRSG.
Engineered Solutions to Problems - When problems are found, our team can help you with engineering decisions needed to select the proper fix or repair method. We have the boiler experience and engineering capability to help you. Often we have seen your problem before, and understand what repair strategies work and which do not.
PDF Brochures: Expert Field Support; Technical Support
Above: Technical advisors help insure proper installation quality.
Above: HRST Techical Advisors were on site to help the client with these major pressure part retrofits.
Above: HRSG crawl space fun helping an international client jack up tube harps to repair FAC damage.
Client Testimonials
HRSG Emergency Repair Technical Advisor Service (February 2011)
125 MW Cogen Facility, Northwest Region, USA
We had an emergency situation on New Year's weekend; I called HRST and they had Rich Miller on a plane and at our site within 17 hours.
We had an explosion in one of our transition ducts. Our fear was that we had structural damage as a result of the situation. Rich came out and did a thorough inspection. It turns out we got lucky and had no issues.
Rich was great. He hit the ground running and wound up being correct about everything. It is a good feeling to be able to rely on a company like HRST, Inc. when our backs are against the wall.
I would certainly recommend HRST, Inc. and Rich Miller to any utility with a similar need. Rich did a fantastic job for us.
Tube Plugging Procedure Technical Advisor (October 2010)
Combined Cycle Cogen, Florida, USA
Bryan Craig provided engineering advice, direction and support for a tube plugging procedure in one of our facilities. We needed a reliable expert to provide us insight into the problem we were having and give us the confidence we needed to solve the problem the right way. Bryan was fantastic in this capacity; we were very pleased with his contribution.
Bryan's communication style was direct and right on the money. He has worked on several projects for us int he past and we were familiar with his approach. Thanks to Bryan's efforts, we were able to resolve this problem quickly and effectively.
I am happy to recommend Bryan Craig and HRST, Inc. to any facility with a similar need. We certainly plan on working with Bryan Craig and HRST, Inc. in the near future.
HRSG Water Chemistry Technical Advisor (September 2010)
F-Class Combined Cycle Power Plant, Indiana, USA
Amy Sieben assisted us with improving our knowledge of water chemistry. We determined that we lacked a fundamental understanding of exactly how important water chemistry is to the understanding and maintenance of our HRSG equipment.
Amy did a fantastic job of communicating exactly how water chemistry ahs a profound and lasting impact on our equipment. This knowledge will serve us well as we hope to better understand our HRSG equipment and how to measure, track and control each unit's unique water chemistry.
Amy provided us with some excellent training and made herself available at all hours to answer our follow-up questions.
I am comfortable recommending Amy Sieben and HRST, Inc. to any other company with similar needs and I certainly look foward to working with them again in the near future.
Boiler Outage Project Specification Service (January 2010)
F-Class Combined Cycle Power Plant, Iowa, USA
Victor Ferris recently helped us with two separate bid documents. The first was for NDE [non-destructive examination] on our HP system and the second was for NDE on reheat piping. We used these documents to assist us in sourcing vendors for these projects.
Victor is extremely knowledgeable and I have an excellent rapport with him. Victor delivered these documents to us in a very timely fashion.
I appreciate working with companies like HRST, Inc. because they have always provided us with excellent service and they have engineers that we can speak with and relate to both personally and professionally.
I am comfortable recommending HRST, Inc. to any other company with similar needs and I certainly plan on working with Victor and HRST, Inc. in the near future.
HRSG Technical Advisor and Inspection Service (November 2009)
300 MW Cogeneraton Facility, Gulf Cost Region, USA
Scott Wambeke helped us during a major renovation of our system. During Scott's normal inspection, we had duct burner replacements, perf plate replacements and wall & liner replacements going on - it was pretty busy here for a while.
We had Scott and HRST, Inc. come in during a scheduled outage and come up with a punch list of items we should be focused on repairing and/or fixing.
Scott is very familiar with our units and he did a fantastic job of putting his punch list together and alerting us to potential problems. Scott is very technically competent and needs very little supervision. We like that a lot.
We enjoyed working with Scott on this project and would certainly recommend HRST, Inc. to other companies looking for reliable expertise.
Boiler On-Site Technical Advisor Testimonial (April 2009)
Refinery Power Plant, California, USA
HRST, Inc. and Rob Tretter were very helpful in working with us on a project that was midstream for us. The original owner of the facility left several welds in the tube ties that were insufficient and the overall design of the entire system opened up the possibility for additional rubbing. Rob inspected the tube ties and helped us formulate a game plan that solved the problem for us. Rob was straight forward and I felt that the communication was excellent. What I liked most about Rob was that I felt like we were always on the same page. I did not have to ride Rob’s tail and that made it even easier. Rob was very helpful and even offered us some additional advice regarding our boiler that we will put to good use. I had a great experience with HRST, Inc. and Rob Tretter and would certainly do business with them in the future.
Boiler Specification and Design Review Service (November 2007)
F-Class Combined Cycle Power Plant, Ontario, Canada
Below is an excerpt from a 2007 article in Combined Cycle Journal. As experienced powerplant developers and operators, Northland’s engineers also knew you never were going to get all the features/enhancements you’d like on any project. Nothaving direct F-class HRSG experience, Gliosca and his team called in HRST Inc, Eden Prairie, Minnesota, to review the boiler proposals and to help the IPP decide on upgrades worth paying for. HRST, which was familiar with the designs submitted by all vendors bidding, specializes in developing solutions for HRSGs that don’t behave the way the owners would like. After reviewing HRST’s vendor evaluations and reflecting on Northland’s experience, Gliosca, Lennox, Kaminski, and others in the organization recommended the following enhancements, among others:
-
FAC. In sections of the boiler most susceptible to this type of attack, reduce velocities to the degree possible and replace “standard materials” with P11. The company also is developing operating procedures that maintain water chemistry specs under tight control to minimize the opportunity for FAC initiation.
-
Add borescope ports in headers to enable visual inspection of areas prone to FAC attack.
-
Increase the size of drain piping for the superheater and reheater.
-
Add thermocouples at critical locations in tube bundles to more closely monitor thermal transients and guide operating procedures.
-
Beef-up tube restraints to reduce the probability of tube failures during transients.
-
Upgrade materials for the stack damper (located in the stack) to maximize life.