T10: Strategies to Prevent Sudden Catastrophic Compressor Failures during Transient Operating Conditions
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Date
2021
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Turbomachinery Laboratory, Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station
Abstract
Many compressor failures occur during transient operating conditions These failures can be prevented or minimized by having agood machinery condition monitoring program, a good machinery protection system and good maintenance practices The purpose ofa machinery condition monitoring system is to identify machine degradation early so that action can be taken before it progresses to apoint of machine failure The purpose of a machinery protection system is to ensure that a machine is operated within its normalparameters, provide detection of an imminent problem, and to trip a machine if there is a serious problem A machinery protectionsystem consists of the instruments that measure the key parameters, and a control system that displays, alarms and/or trips the machineif a parameter exceeds predefined limitsMachinery protection systems can increase machinery reliability by mitigating damage to the machine when a problem developsHowever, the scope and complexity of machinery protection systems, even for similar pieces of equipment, can vary quite a bitWhile more sophisticated machinery protection systems can further improve reliability, the additional instruments and controlsincrease cost, can result in additional operating complexity if there are more constraints to control, and can lower machine availabilityby causing unnecessary trips Thus, standard, less critical compressors in a simple service may have a very simple protection system,while highly engineered, very critical compressors in a complex service may have a more sophisticated protection systemCondition monitoring can also be a very powerful tool in preventing sudden, catastrophic compressor failures Sometimes the signs ofprogressive damage are very subtle and difficult to detect In these cases, a machine may appear to suddenly fail without warningHowever, a robust condition monitoring system that detects thermodynamic and/or mechanical degradation at an early stage can allowfor action to be taken before the condition worsens to a point that causes a machine failureIn this tutorial four case studies will be presented Each case study will describe a different compressor failure that occurred during atransient operating condition And in each case, it will be described how simple changes in machinery condition monitoring,machinery protection and/or maintenance strategies could have prevented the failure The purpose of this tutorial is to describe howthese strategies can be applied to other compressors to prevent failures or minimize damage if a problem occurs, without addingsignificant cost or complexity, or causing nuisance trips
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Tutorials