Titan 130 – FT8 & Solar – Turbine Technical Information

ART269 – Titan 130 Gas Fuel System Intro

Don — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 12:32:11 +0000

Article Ref – ART269

ATTENTION MANAGERS – Do your operators and technicians really understand your turbine systems — or just the generic ones?

Most training available for Solar Turbines and Pratt & Whitney FT8 equipment is generic by necessity. But your site isn’t generic.

Your drawings, your logic, your operating philosophy, and your risks are unique.

I create custom video-based turbine training built specifically for your installation using your manuals, your drawings, your control logic, your tags, and your branding. The result is training content that belongs to you, not a vendor, and can be reused for onboarding, refresher training, and incident prevention.

Below is a short example of the type of site-specific training video I deliver.

ART038 – Solar – T130 – Thrust bearing protection

Donald Murphy — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:47:44 +0000

ARTICLE REF – ART038

This information was taken from an actual problem on a Titan Compressor Set:

The thrust channel of the Titan thrust bearing was in alarm occasionally even thought there was not that many hours on the equipment. The history was downloaded from a SCADA system and also reviewed the history on the display. This showed the thrust was incorrectly set up during commissioning, but that the bearing was not showing any signs of any deterioration. The recommendation from Solar was to modify the Logix5000 set up for the channel. The bearing is protected by thrust measurements and also by an RTD monitoring the bearing temperature.

There are different schemes for setting up the axial thrust protection on Solar equipment, but whatever method is used you still have the same protection for the equipment.

Let us look at a situation where the thrust bearing clearance was 0.016” and we set up the thrust collar in the center between the active and inactive bearings. Now let us say the alarm was 0.005” into the active bearing (babbit material) and the shut down was 0.010”.

The sensitivity of the vibration system is 200 mV / mil, therefore you can calculate that the thrust collar has to travel 0.013 mils before it reaches its alarm set-point. Let’s say that the voltage of the vibration channel was -10 volts in the condition above (thrust collar in mid position). As the shaft would move to its active thrust position the voltage would increase by 1.6 volts. As the bearing wears the voltage would increase until it reaches -12.6 volts. To reach the shutdown level the bearing would have to wear 0.005” more which would give a channel voltage of -13.6 volts.

This is how the channel set up would look like for the example above:

Now take a situation like a Titan where access to the shaft and thrust bearing is much more difficult. To move the rotor to its central position you would have to remove the accessory drive gearbox and using a special overhaul tool you could move the rotor to its central position, but this is not practicable in the field. Also the thrust collar and transducer are buried inside the number one bearing, making any adjustments in the field difficult. The following procedure is typically used for a turbine set-up.

When you put the turbine in service from new or after you install it from overhaul, start the unit up and load the unit to full load. The shaft will move to its active thrust position and will stay on its active thrust position until the unit is shut down. When it is shut down the rotor will move the inactive thrust position and then when rolling down to stop may adopt some intermediate position as the aerodynamic forces are removed. Using the same bearing clearances and voltage above we see that when the rotor moves to its active face the channel voltage will read -11.6 volts. When the rotor moves to its inactive bearing the channel voltage would be -8.4 volts. On a turbine the active thrust bearing is the only one which takes the wear so this is the one which has to have accurate protection. So we set the channel zero position voltage to the voltage we note on the channel when we start the unit up after we install it. In this case we would insert the number -11.6 volts, and because we configure the zero position voltage to the active thrust the alarm and shutdown set points would be different from the first example, yet giving the same protection. See the example below.

The point I am trying to make with the examples above is that the control system set points have to be programmed differently depending on a number of constraints. Above are two examples of how the channel may have different alarm and shutdown set points, different zero position voltage, yet the protection offered is the same.

While studying the historical data in San Diego it was clear that the thrust channel was not set up during commissioning, and that the channel was close to alarm all along. The bearing temperature data was also studied as this is a better indication of thrust bearing condition. Some customers even chose not to have thrust monitoring on their equipment for the same reason. It was felt by the Titan support engineer in San Diego that increasing the alarm and shutdown set point on the active thrust bearing from the current zero voltage would be the approximate settings needed to give the bearing the protection it needed.

ART022 – Solar – T130 – Oil flushing

Donald Murphy — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 20:00:50 +0000

ARTICLE REF – ART022

While the heading is flushing the Solar Titan 130, it could be any turbine. The photos are actually of a Titan commissioning.

Bulk oil

Using bulk oil comes with its challenges. Normally the bulk containers are reusable and you have no control over what was in them before you got your oil. If you are commissioning you will be filling a large quantity of oil and you need to pass the oil through a fine mesh filter. As you can see in the photo there was a lot of dirt in oil. Even oil in drums will not normally meet the Solar specification until it has passed through the lube oil filters many times. The main oil filters used by Solar now are often 3 or 5 micron – that is very fine indeed and will improve the cleanliness of even new oil.

Foreign objects

When commissioning you have to have the mindset that anything is possible. This piece of cardboard was found in the oil tank. If not found it would disintegrate and start to block lines, filters, instruments – a real nuisance. On another site a small label stating that the “hydraulic tank was inspected” was left in the tank. It floated on top of the oil for years. When the turbine was being changed at overhaul some of the oil was lost due to lines being disconnected. The level in the tank dropped and during the next start the label was sucked into the suction of the pump. That took a couple of days to find.

Flushing coke from the system

While this is not done at commissioning, it would be necessary if the number 2 seal starts passing hot compressed air into the oil cavity at the bearing. The Titan 130 has a high compression ration which also means it gets very hot. This will form coke when it comes in contact with oil in the bearing areas. With normal amounts of air leaking at the seal you should see oil varnishing of the bearing location. But when the leak gets worse the oil being burnt turns into “coke” which is a hard substance. The Titan can change the color of a tank of oil in one day due to the formation of coke. Trying to flush coke from the oil system is not easy and is very time consuming.

Oil additives

The filters used by Solar in the lubrication system are very fine. The use of 5-micron filters is common. This can remove oil additives from the oil and form a jell like film on the filter. During the commissioning of a T70 the lube tank was filled and the lube pump was circulating the new oil. Within 20 minutes the DP increased so the reserve filter was selected. 20 minutes later the reserve also was blocked. A lab on site was able to identify a jell coating on the filter. The oil was drained and filled again (that is a lot of oil on a compressor set) – same thing happened – within 20 minutes the filter was blocked. The operator was adamant that the same oil was being used in a different plant without issue. This nearby plant did not have an issue because they were in service for a couple of years with an old batch of oil and was using the new oil only to top-up. That is why the did not have an issue. It turned out the oil supplier had introduced a new additive to improve some quality and did not advise the operator. A 5-micron filter is very fine!

Flushing kits

Solar make very good quality special tools, but when it came to flushing kits they were not good. That was some time ago and maybe it has improved. The quality of what was supplied was OK, but there was always a need to make up additional hoses and fittings to get it to work. The flushing kits used in the manufacturing facility are very good and it is a pity the design of the flushing kits were not based on them. Attached is an example of what was needed to complete an oil flushing on a Titan some years ago.

ART111 – Solar – Titan 130 Oil leak

Donald Murphy — Sat, 25 Sep 2021 12:41:37 +0000

ARTICLE REF – ART111

Question from Solar Turbines Linkedin group ………

Has anyone had an oil leak in the bearing 2/3 on the titan 130? The red line shows where the oil leak is occurring and the blue line seal air taken from axial compressor last stage. There is no vibration problem in the gas turbine.

Two-shaft Titan 130 slow roll within the current 3-5% NGP range with the bleed valve open can result in oil leakage from the number two and three bearings. The amount of leakage varies. The root cause of the leakage was found to be insufficient buffer air flow across the labyrinth seals. Engine tests and resulting pressure measurements have aided in determining the optimum slow roll speed to avoid oil leakage. In addition, it was determined that the bleed valve as well as the guide
vanes must remain closed during slow roll.

The recommendation from Solar for units with this problem mentioned above is “at the next opportunity, the following should be accomplished for affected units to avoid bearing leakage”
1. Set the slow roll speed range to 12-15% NGP.
2. Correct the bleed valve schedule for units with a 6 inch bleed valve.
3. Ensure bleed valves remain closed if acknowledge/reset is selected when stopping.
4. Configure the system to allow the unit to be started when slow roll is in progress.

Typical sources of oil leaks:
High Pre/Post lube oil pressure.
Number 1 seal air leaking or not connected.
Damaged o/ring on the number 2/3 oil transfer tube tip – o-ring can be replaced on site.

To determine the source of the leak:
Wash the turbine of any residual oil.
Disconnect the supply to Number 2-3 bearing and run the pre post pump to see if there is a leak at the Number 1 bearing seal.
Reconnect the supply to Number 2-3 bearing, disconnect the supply to Number 1 bearing and run the pre post pump.

End or article.

ART104 – Solar – Titan 130 – Combustor pin wear

Donald Murphy — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 01:57:53 +0000

ARTICLE REF – ART104

Some years ago Solar has found that a numerous Titan units world wide were wearing the combustor shroud pins due to a design fault. Wear on the pins allow the heat shield to move thereby causing fretting on the torch igniter tube.

Below you can see wear on one of the three support pins.

Below you can see where the combustor outer liner cut into the torch igniter.

End of article.