Standardized Integrally Geared Turbomachines - Tailor Made For The Process Industry.
Abstract
For more than 40 years, integrally geared centrifugal compressors have been in use worldwide, in the plant air sector first, and increasingly in the process industry. Apart from reliability, efficiency and operating range, the most striking features of this compressor concept, particular when used in the process industry, are the versatility and configurability of the machine. Today, all sorts of process gases, including toxic and flammable ones, can be compressed or expanded using integrally geared centrifugal compressor and expander units. The high level of modular construction employed in integrally geared turbomachines (IGTMs) allows for a high degree of standardization; the resulting building block system makes it possible to adapt the machine concept to each field of application and, in particular, to the customer's own requirements. Of prime importance here are the definition and geometry of the interfaces between the individual modules and equipment units, such as compressor and expansion stages, gear case, pinion shafts, seal systems, etc. The integrally geared centrifugal compressor has conquered many ranges of application in the process industry starting with compressors operated purely on air, followed by nitrogen and then carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, chlorine, hydrocarbons, acetylenexide, and isobutyric aldehyde, and so forth. A recent success involving the compressing of high purity oxygen to high discharge pressures using integrally geared centrifugal compressors deserves special mention. It had been thought that this could only be achieved using single shaft compressors. This means that for oxygen, too, the advantages of integrally geared centrifugal compressors such as efficiency and very broad operating ranges can be used, as in the case of variable oxygen supply systems (varox) in air separation plants. Energy recovery in the process industry has presented integrally geared centrifugal compressors with a new task. Tail gases often have high energy contents which can be returned directly to a compression process in the same machine through addition of expander stages. In its original concept, the integrally geared centrifugal compressor is primarily suitable for the use of low-speed drive units. By using "free" pinion shaft extensions or additional pinion shafts, high speed drive units without an external intermediate gear can also be used. This aspect, together with the integration of expander stages already mentioned, leads to a very interesting and economical application of integrally geared centrifugal compressors: alongside compression and expansion functions, IGTMs can be used for mechanical output power distribution in sophisticated process equipment such as dimethylterephthalate (DMT) and pure terephthalic acid (PTA systems).
Description
LecturePg. 131-144
Subject
TurbomachinesCollections
Citation
Fingerhut, Udo; Rothstein, Ernst; Sterz, Gerard (1991). Standardized Integrally Geared Turbomachines - Tailor Made For The Process Industry.. Texas A&M University. Turbomachinery Laboratories. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /163553.