Dry Gas Seals. Monitoring a Tandem Dry Gas Seal's Secondary Seal

Abstract

Tutorial 19D: Rotating equipment and instrument engineers working with dry gas seals should attend this tutorial to increase their knowledge of methods for monitoring secondary seals. Over the last several years a number of compressor manufactures have issued safety notices concerning the industries inability to properly detect secondary seal failures in a tandem dry gas seal arrangement. When a secondary seal failure is undetected, the potential for an uncontrolled process gas release increases, leading to risks indicated in the safety notices issued. This tutorial will examine the methods of monitoring the secondary seal in a tandem dry gas seal arrangement and the means to detect a secondary seal failure. The information and diagrams in this tutorial do not provide detail design requirements for the total seal monitoring system but only methods currently being used for monitoring the secondary seal.