Dolphin Supplies HRSG Auxiliary Exchangers for Combined-Cycle Power Plant

A combined-cycle power plant commissioning its second HRSG train needed auxiliary cooling exchangers sized against the actual duty cycle of a plant that would ramp up and down daily to follow grid demand, rather than the steady-state profile a baseload unit's original equipment package would have assumed.

Dolphin engineered the auxiliary exchanger package to HEI standards, with thermal design run against the plant's full daily ramp profile rather than a single design point — a cycling combined-cycle unit sees more thermal fatigue loading over its life than a baseload plant of the same nameplate capacity, and the exchanger design had to account for that duty, not just the peak.

• Verified tube-side and shell-side flow against the full ramp-rate profile, not just peak load
• Selected materials rated for the thermal cycling fatigue duty rather than steady-state service alone
• Coordinated delivery milestones directly against the HRSG erection schedule
• Hydrotested and documented each unit before dispatch to site

The package was delivered in line with the HRSG erection schedule and commissioned without a duty shortfall, giving the plant an auxiliary cooling system engineered for the cycling service it would actually see over its operating life.