The context of the deregulated energy market leads to high competitiveness among producers and requires suitable strategies in plants and systems management: strongly irregular and discontinuous operation is required in order to meet the user demand and produce energy mainly during peak hours,...

In the deregulated market scenario wider power generation flexibility with respect to the past is needed; on the other hand, frequent changes of the operating conditions may reduce the life of the most critical components, such as steam heaters or turbine blades. Fatigue failures produced by cyclic...