Inspection maintenance and planning of shutdown in thermal electric generating plants

The schedule shutdown of an industrial plant and, more specifically, of an electrical generating station, is becoming increasingly important. The major parameters to be taken into account for the planning of such a shutdown are basically of economic-financial nature such as costs of the related services (materials, equipment, manpower, etc), loss of revenue caused by the station's shutdown as well as by the station availability, and other requirements expected from it by the Load Dispatch and consumers. Improving the equipment's performances and the station's availability are the fundamental objectives to be strived for. The authors present in this paper, in an abridged form, the planning tools used for thermal electric generating plants shutdowns for inspections, maintenance and design changes implementation. (Author)