Power Generation Steam Oil & Gas Expert Witness

PROFILE

Technical Director, Europe and the Middle East

• Expert is a Chartered Consultant Engineer with 20+ years’ experience in the Power Generation, Oil & Gas and Petrochemical industries, with:
• Expert knowledge on turbomachinery, power plants, production systems, digital solutions.
• Turbomachinery design expertise obtained whilst working with OEMs.
• Proven track record of managing and delivering multidiscipline projects across industries.
• Holds a Doctor of Engineering degree from Cranfield University.
• Chartered Engineer of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), United Kingdom.
• Successful in multicultural and multinational environments.
• Excellent communication skills from board to site levels.

EXPERTISE

• Root-Cause-Analysis/ Forensic Engineering of turbomachinery failure cases, independent consultancy to OEM-EPC and operators.
• Expert witness during FAT and SAT of gas turbines, gas compressors and power plants following ASME PTC10, PTC22, API-617, ISO-2314.
• Asset Life Assessment of turbomachinery and related assets.
• Troubleshooting of power and process production systems.
• Design and configuration of bespoke performance monitoring systems for Combined and Rankine cycle power plants.
• Modelling of Combined and Rankine Cycle power plants and its main components.
• Assessment of plant instrumentation suitability for performance monitoring and testing purposes including field inspection.
• Technical specification Define/review design specifications in support of ITT/RFT
• Technical bid evaluation of turbomachinery vendor bids.
• Conceptual design, FEED, debottlenecking, troubleshooting, driver selection for gas compression systems (green/ brownfields).
• Compression systems layout, control and instrumentation analysis.
• Troubleshooting and optimization of control systems architecture.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Whitecastle Engineering Ltd, Director Consultant Engineer
February 2016 to Present
Actively involved in a wide variety of machinery projects including conceptual design of compression systems, compressor vendor bid evaluations, performance benchmarking of compressors, system and compressor control analysis, FAT and SAT testing of compressors and gas turbines, dynamic simulations of compression systems, root-cause-analysis, and advanced power cycles.

• Troubleshooting of gas turbine combustor coking issues, UK.
• Troubleshooting and optimization of a gas compression system, UK.
• Technical audit of LNG compressors design, U.S.A.
• Root-Cause-Analysis of Compressor/Expander failure, UK.
• Asset life assessment of refinery equipment, The Netherlands and Spain.
• Owner’s engineer for onshore field development gas compression project, UK.
• Air Compressor reliability and obsolescence study, UK.
• Gas Turbine Air Filtration system optimization study, UK.
• Design audit of gas turbine Selective Catalytic Reactor (SCR), UK.
• Training course: Compressor and Steam turbines fundamentals, UK.
• Gas compressor low molecular weight gas during start-up study, UK.
• Natural gas compander technical specification Expert Support, Dubai.
• Gas compressor envelope optimization for late field life study, UK.
• Troubleshooting of LP-IP off-shore gas compressor study, UK.
• Field integrity and installation Inspection of SGT400 power generation packages, Colombia.
• Forensic Engineering of Compressor Failure, Qatar.

MSE Consultants, Principal Machinery Engineer
July 2011 to February 2016
Technical lead to machinery and process engineers assigned to a project-specific team. Communicate objectives to the team members, establish technical framework for the project, define responsibilities and set necessary quality assurance procedures.

• RWE Development Compression Conceptual Design, UK.
• Premier compression specialist engineering support, UK.
• BP Reciprocating compressors integrity analysis, UK.
• Pluspetrol compressor and driver SAT expert witness, Peru.
• TAQA gas compressor operation optimization and control improvement, UK.
• Confidential – Turbomachinery failure Root Cause Analysis study, Brazil/Europe.
• TAQA FEED engineering support, UK.
• Apache gas compressor control system study, UK.
• TAQA gas compressor revamp feasibility study, UK.
• BP Compressor technical assurance, UK.
• Talisman feasibility study, UK.
• Hess gas compressor control system upgrade, Denmark.
• Hess gas compressor dynamic simulation, Denmark.
• Talisman platform availability study, UK.

GP Strategies, Senior Consultant Engineer
October 2007 to June 2011
Responsible for providing power plant engineering consultancy services and the design, development, commissioning, and service of bespoke performance monitoring systems for power plants to the international power generation industry.
Reported to the International Operations Director.

Activities

• Heat & Mass balance modelling of Combined and Rankine Cycle power plants and its main components (gas turbine, steam turbine, steam generators, condenser, feedwater pump).
• Expert witness to Performance Acceptance Tests of coal-fired and combined cycle power plants following international Testing Standards.
• Evaluation of flow conditions from measurements in devices such as orifice plates, turbine nozzles, Venturi tubes according to PTC-19.5 and ISO-5167 standards.
• Design and configuration of bespoke performance monitoring systems for Combined and Rankine cycle power plants.
• Assessment of plant instrumentation suitability for performance monitoring and testing purposes including field inspection.
• Delivered CPD (Continuing Professional Development) courses on Combined Cycle and Gas Turbine Fundamentals.
• Delivered User and Administrator training courses on Performance Monitoring Systems.

Projects

• Electricite de France (EdF) development of performance monitoring systems, France.
• GasNatural development of centralized monitoring system, Spain.
• GasNatural Unit 1 & 2 performance acceptance test (SAT), Spain
• Gas Natural’s power station acceptance tests (SAT), Mexico.
• AES coal-fired plant performance acceptance test (SAT), Chile
• Union Fenosa coal-fired boiler performance acceptance test (SAT), Spain.
• Design and Development of Performance monitoring systems for: Union Fenosa, AES, Intergen, EdF Energy.
• Technical presentations and training at annual GP Strategies Power Generation industry user conferences.
• Delivered 12+ power plant performance monitoring user and administrator training courses in English and Spanish.

General Electric, Mechanical Design Engineer
April 2001 to September 2003

• Steam Turbine Technology: Member of the New Product Introduction group responsible for the mechanical design of steam path components such as diaphragms, rotors, shells, casings.
• Thermo-structural analyses of large steam turbines.
• Collaborated in the thermo-structural analysis of components for the HEAT high pressure steam turbine: rotor and casings.
• Gas Turbine Technology: Member of Compressor -AirFoils Centre of Excellence group.
  • Collaborated in developing a computer program to estimate optimized length of VSV linkage elements for the CF34-10 engine.
  • Collaborated in the design of the VSV elements for the LMS100 engine.
• Product development engineering: conceptual design, material selection, weight, cost & interference impact analysis.
• GEAE-CIAT Technical Excellence Award – Analysis and Design 2003 Finalist.
• Responsible for monitoring compliance with ISO9000 standards by area personnel (50+) and define quality strategy.
• Successful implementation of ISO9000:2000: non-conformities reduced by 50%, upgrade of procedures and quality documents and implementation of on-line quality tests.

EDUCATION

Engineering Doctorate, Cranfield University UK
Integrated Executive MBA in PhD October 2003 to September 2007

• Thesis: Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Power Station Performance Simulation and Diagnostics for Operations Optimization and Risk Management.
• Executive MBA modules: Marketing, Finance, Project Management, Economics, Operations, Strategy, Accounting.

Mechanical Electrical Engineering, Monterrey Tech – ITESM
August 1996 to December 2000