Technical articles published in magazines like CompressorTech2, Hydrocarbon Processing, PTQ, Gas Compression
Analysis of the build-up to the fracture of a compressor crosshead led a refiner to revise its approach to performance [...]
Does frame vibration offer effective and reliable protection for reciprocating compressors? For decades, reciprocating compressor monitoring was not a high [...]
Evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the most common online condition monitoring technologies
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This case study demonstrates a case where – after a safety shutdown – a hyper compressor in LDPE service was restarted after it was tripped which led to severe damage within the compressor.
Modern, online diagnostic and monitoring systems are great things to have for safe and reliable machinery operation. Condition based maintenance, increase of uptime, efficient repairs and short MTTR with maximum MTBM – all these concepts and goals can be realized with state-of-the-art technologies and services.
In the process industry, it is still common that users strictly separate machine protection equipment from condition monitoring. Machine operators frequently face a time-consuming troubleshooting based on minimum diagnostic data e.g. from the DCS system. For many years, flight data recorders have been a common standard in the aviation industry to perform post-incident analyses of aircraft accidents. Such transient data recorders are also available for machinery protection systems. Captured data can be used to improve the traditional snapshot monitoring program and support cost-efficient condition monitoring purposes without waiting for an analyst to come.
The only way to ensure safe, reliable, efficient and economical operation of reciprocating compressors is to monitor them continuously and to take appropriate action based on the information the monitoring systems provide. That simple objective, however, is difficult to put into practice. The variety of instruments, systems and methodologies for machine monitoring and diagnostics can be perplexing. Descriptions and claims are sometimes similar, often conflicting and almost always confusing. This plain-language guide to system selection is to help provide clarity for the decision process. It lists the essential capabilities a system should have and explains why those capabilities are needed.
In December 2007, the online monitoring system avoided a major and cost-intensive damage at one compressor. The permanent piston rod position monitoring detected a cracked respectively a virtually broken piston rod at the 1st stage. Prior to a complete rod failure, the machine had been automatically stopped and costly consequential damages have been avoided.
Avoiding ‘crater maintenance’ and the ‘doom loop’ Reciprocating compressors have a reputation as bad actors among the rotating equipment fleet; [...]
