Power Generation Coating & Repair Services

Flow-induced metal loss is the recurring story on rotating gear. Particle-laden gas erodes ID fan blade leading edges, tips, and deflectors. Airflow falls off and the rotor loses its balance inside a single campaign. Erosion-corrosion and cavitation reshape boiler-feed and cooling-water pump impellers until the unit is off its head curve, and cavitation pits turbine runners with the spongy damage that keeps thinning the steel.

We rebuild the worn geometry cold and overcoat it with an erosion-resistant ceramic-filled layer that brings the original profile back. No heat stress on a blade root, and no rebalancing for weld heat. Cavitation-prone runners get lined with a cold-applied elastomer that absorbs the implosion energy. Our crew also rebuilds worn shafts, journals, and keyways and machines them back to the specified diameter, so a slender rotor goes back in with no arc-weld distortion. The unit recommissions on its design curve during the same outage.

Corrosion under insulation hides until a hot line finally leaks. Wet lagging holds moisture against the pipe wall, and inspectors only find the metal loss once it is already severe. The plant cannot cool or drain a header to fix it, so conventional linings that need an ambient, dry substrate never get applied at all.

BHI Coatings brushes a barrier coating onto the hot surface under the insulation while the line stays in service, protecting the steel across the CUI temperature band. Where cladding leaks at seams, support legs, and penetrations, we seal it with a reinforced membrane so the water never reaches the steel again. Hot vessels and pipework running above ambient take high-temperature linings that cure on the operating surface, and we coat the exterior in place so the asset keeps running. Live leaks at headers and weld seams get sealed cold under pressure, then overwrapped for a permanent fix, with no product evacuation and no fire watch.

Cooling-water service is where galvanic corrosion does its work. Dissimilar tube metals build an electrical cell at the tube sheet and water box, the steel around every tube end corrodes, and leak paths open up. Plugged tubes and a thinning sheet drop heat-transfer efficiency, and on a hot day that shows up as lost megawatts.

We rebuild the tube sheet and water box with ceramic-filled epoxies and electrically isolate the dissimilar-metal joint, which breaks the galvanic cycle. No hot work goes near the bundle. The job fits inside the turnaround window, and the unit is back in service in days rather than waiting on a replacement water box. Valve bodies, condensate tanks, and extraction pumps get protected on the same scope, with eroded cavities rebuilt and overcoated so the next inspection finds sound metal.

Vibration and misalignment trace back to whatever is under the feet. Voids, distortion, and gaps below pump bases and machine feet feed movement straight back into the rotating equipment, and steel shims leave point contact that lets the unit drift under load and thermal cycling. We pour a cold-cure chocking compound that beds the base across its full contact area and transfers load evenly. Where precise alignment matters, we form load-bearing shims, insulating shims included, matched to the actual mating surface. Equipment holds alignment with no machining of the foundation.

What the plant cares about is simple. The fan, pump, exchanger, or base goes back to service inside the outage that was already scheduled, on its design performance, with no welding heat and no OEM lead time. BHI Coatings serves power generators across the Texas Gulf Coast from a climate-controlled shop, with crews staged for turnarounds and a 24-hour line for the failures that force a derate. Recognized repair codes such as ISO 24817 and ASME PCC-2 frame the composite work where engineered pipe and vessel repairs apply.