Turbine Cleaning with Dry Ice Blasting: Gas, Steam, and Balance of Plant
Compressor fouling costs output and heat rate. Dry ice blasting cleans turbine components in place during outages without abrasive media in the flow path.
Fouled compressor blading and dirty turbine components directly reduce output and worsen heat rate. Online water washing gets the easy fouling; the baked and oily deposits that build across a run need mechanical cleaning during an outage — and grit media in a turbine flow path is not an acceptable risk.
Components commonly cleaned
- Compressor blades, vanes, and inlet guide vanes
- Turbine casings, diaphragms, and shells
- Rotors and blade roots during major inspections
- Bearing housings, lube oil piping exteriors, and gearboxes
- Exhaust ducting, transition pieces, and expansion joints
- Inlet filter houses, silencers, and evaporative coolers
Why dry ice is the outage tool
- No residual media left in the flow path — the media sublimates
- No water, so no corrosion risk on parked steam-path surfaces
- Non-abrasive to blade coatings and TBC when set correctly
- In-place work reduces teardown and shortens critical path
- Immediate access for NDT — clean surfaces, no residue to remove first
Coatings and NDT
Thermal barrier and corrosion-resistant coatings are exactly what you do not want to remove. Pressure, media form, and standoff are set to lift the deposit and stop there, and a test area is always run first with the OEM's or the plant's coating spec in hand. Because the process leaves no residue, dye-penetrant and eddy-current inspection can follow immediately.
Outage sequencing
Dry ice work usually slots between disassembly and inspection. The gains are twofold: cleaning takes less time than solvent-and-rag work, and the inspection step starts without a separate degrease-and-dry cycle.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can turbine blades be cleaned in place?+
Casing, diaphragm, and accessible blading are routinely cleaned in place with extended nozzles. Full rotor cleaning is typically done with the rotor pulled.
Will it remove protective coatings?+
Not at properly set parameters. Coating condition is confirmed on a test area against the plant's coating specification before production blasting.
How does this compare to CO₂ washing online?+
Online washing addresses light fouling during operation. Dry ice blasting is the outage-time method for deposits that washing does not remove.
See our HRSG and power generation services for outage scoping and mobilization windows.
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