Condition-based maintenance of gas turbine hot gas path section: Current practices, challenges and future directions

Gas turbines are essential in industries such as oil and gas, power generation, and aerospace, where their operational efficiency and reliability are critical. Effective maintenance and monitoring, especially concerning combustion and hot gas path failures, are vital for maximizing turbine performance. This literature review examines current practices in gas turbine condition-based maintenance (CBM), focusing on hot gas path failures. To capture the state of the art, relevant papers were identified using keywords like “Gas turbine predictive maintenance,” “Hot gas path failures,” and “Maintenance of hot gas path components.” This initial search yielded numerous publications, which were narrowed down to those specifically addressing maintenance and monitoring of combustion and hot gas path components. The selected works were categorized into hot gas path failures, failure detection and mitigation, prediction and condition monitoring techniques, and AI-driven maintenance strategies. The review highlights significant advancements and ongoing challenges in CBM for gas turbines, indicating a global engagement among researchers and diverse methodologies addressing complex maintenance issues. A quantitative analysis reveals that detection and mitigation strategies contribute the most at 39%, while prediction and monitoring approaches contribute the least at 13%. The increasing focus on AI-driven maintenance reflects a shift towards intelligent algorithms for enhancing decision making and predictive capabilities. Future research opportunities include exploring unexamined hot gas path components and refining existing failure detection methodologies or proposing new AI models for more effective maintenance strategies. While this review provides valuable insights into the current landscape of gas turbine CBM, it is based solely on the selected publications, which may limit its comprehensiveness. Further exploration of broader literature could enrich understanding and contribute to the evolution of effective, efficient, and sustainable maintenance practices in the gas turbine industry.