CST18 - Gas Turbine Noise Abatement Case Study "Upgrading an initial designed noise control system to reduce excessive noise levels"

Abstract

Gas turbines (when used as driver) are one of the major noise contributors to the surroundings. Applying Noise lagging/ insulation usually reduces the omitted noise, however, it might not be sufficient to reach the required conditions if it was applied on the less contributing sound sources. A detailed analysis was conducted on main Gas turbines skid sound sources and their contribution to the overall sound levels. The existing noise control system for the gas turbine skids was redesigned and new Nosie lagging materials were applied on dominant noise sources. Throughout the redesign process, the main objective was to reduce the noise level to acceptable limit with the least modification to achieve: Minimum cost Noise abatement solution. Minimum compression station downtime due to new Noise lagging material insulation This Case study does not only present the problem and its solution but also intends to elaborate the following seven-step problem-solving methodology associated with actual solution implementation: 1. Define the noise problem; 2. Segregation of different noise sources 3. Identification of dominate sources 4. Selection of noise reduction method 5. Validation of noise reduction method 6. Implementation of the validated noise reduction solution 7. Verification of applied solution