Predicting lifetimes of components in power station engineering plant

Abstract Today, there is an increasing demand for power station plant to be operated cost effectively and to reliably maintain required electrical supply. This requires minimising the risk of having to shut down the plant for emergency repairs. Of paramount importance is plant operating integrity and well prepared and executed maintenance programmes. The present paper reports on the recent developments to the auto-reference creep management and control system used by E.ON UK. This includes achieving biaxial strain measurement with increased resolution and the employment of digital image correlation.