81 / 100
August
2019
79
HYDROCARBON
ENGINEERING
C
entrifugal compressors are vital components
within process plants. Often, ensuring their
availability is one of the main tasks for
maintenance teams. To understand if the
compressor is working as expected, the capability to
quantitatively evaluate the machine performance is
vital. Today, software tools like CMap allow users to
predict compressor performance and obtain
quantitative indication about performance parameter
deviations.
Compressor designers and users know that
compressor performance depends on the gas mix
composition and operative inlet conditions (inlet
pressure and inlet temperature). Operative parameters
are in fact affected by the inlet conditions. Therefore,
every approach attempting to evaluate the machine
conditions, based on the assessment of compressor
performance, will require the capability to predict the
compressor performance when working with actual inlet
Massimiliano Di Febo and
Pasquale Paganini, IPC, Italy,
suggest a method for analysing
centrifugal compressor performance
and evaluate the influence gas
mixture composition has on this.