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occurred. With this successful automatic shutdown, further damage was prevented. Monitoring System Equipment As of December 2006, each of four machines were equipped with a Prognost-NT Monitoring System. The system works with acceleration sensors on the crosshead slide (CHS) and on the cylinder. In addition, proximity probes are mounted on the packing flange to measure displacement of the piston rod motion. Figure 1 shows the arrangement, which is mounted on all cylinders.
The monitoring system itself is configured with the following software modules to give the operator a high grade on performance: safety, early failure, wear and process data analysis.
Sensor data CHS / Cylinder Measuring range low pass filter samples Piston rod positions Measuring range samples position +5000 m/s2 10 kHz 16384 2250 m 8192 above
Software Modules
-Safety analysis (CHS, piston rod position) -Early failure detection (CHS, Cyl. and piston rod pos.) -Wear monitoring (piston rod position) -Process data analyses
Machine Data On Jan. 17, 2010, the Prognost customer support specialist received a hotline call. This call was made by the continued on page 32 COMPRESSORTech Two
customer to ask for verification of data based on a current automatic machine shutdown by the Prognost monitoring system. One of the four-throw reciprocating machines was tripped on CHS vibration RMS 36 Segment/cylinder 2, but the operator could not see anything from the outside of the machine. This call was based on the customers service agreement procedure. The machine in question is a four-throw, single-stage, double-acting, natural gas transportation unit (model-year 2005) with bore and stroke of 6.9 and 9.65 in. (175 and 245 mm), respectively. Rotation speed range is between 380 and 740 rpm. Power rating is 2280 hp (1700 kW). It is equipped with a stepless speed and valve unloader (25-50-75-100%). Suction and discharge pressure is 435 and 1160 psi (30 and 80 bar), respectively, while suction and discharge temperatures are 59 and 302F (15 and 150C), respectively. Safety Limit Configuration The proven strategy for vibration analysis is the so-called segmented vibration analysis based on 36 segments. Each 10 crank angle (CA) represents one segment per revolution on which the RMS vibration value is calculated. For each segment there is an individual limit that can be set independently from each other to avoid false alarms given by higher values caused, for example, by high discharge valve impacts or higher vibration levels at the rod load reversal points. As well, the system checks the peak-to-peak value of the piston rod position signal based on eight segments per revolution (Table 2). In addition, the system counts the quantity of segments during a specific number of rotations and in which and how many segments a limit is violated.
Safety Settings
Figure 3. Independent safety limits with the measured values CHS vibration cylinder 2.
Data Analysis At 12:59, the monitoring system detected a catastrophic crosshead failure and it triggered an automatic shutdown of the machine. The first early warnings were registered around 12:38. Around 21 hours prior to the shutdown, Prognost was delivering first messages of the early failure recognition. This is shown in the following extract of the system log book (Figure 4).
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Name M M M M IM M Piston Rod Position 1 Piston Rod Position 2 Piston Rod Position 3 CHS Cylinder 1 CHS Cylinder 2 CHS Cylinder 3
Type of Analysis Peat-Peat over S Seg. . 45 degrees Peat-Peat over 8 Seg. , 45 degrees Peat -Peat over 8 Seg. . 45 degrees RMS values via 36 Seg. . 10 degrees RMS values via 36 Seg. . 10 degrees RMS values via 36 Seg. . 10 degrees
Figure 2 shows the safety limit adjustment of the crosshead vibration sensor from crank 2 with the actual measured values. In this case the limit is equal over all segments with a value of 40 m/s 2 instead of setting the limits independently from each other, which are displayed in Figure 3. The advantage to doing the settings independently is because of the different vibration behavior within one revolution. The piston rod position safety limit adjustment is similar.
Figure 2. Equal safety limits with the measured values CHS vibration cylinder 2.
The following diagram (Figure 5) represents the RMS value of the segment 8 (70 to 80 CA). The safety limit for this segment (40 m/s 2 ) was exceeded at 12:38 the first time. The shutdown took place 11 minutes later. Because the production continued on page 34
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personnel at the site were not able to detect a failure, they started the machine a second time. This resulted in tripping the machine based on the same condition again.
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Figure 7. Online ring buffer data of the crosshead vibration and piston rod postition.
Figure 6. Two-month 3-D trend of the crosshead RMS vibration and piston rod position peak-to-peak.
Figure 6 shows the measured crosshead RMS vibration of all 36 segments and the piston rod position peak-to-peak of all eight segments in one colored 3-D trend view for a period of two months. An operator can see how the vibration rose slowly, and then progressed to measure clearly high values. A logical assumption is that the damage did not occur abruptly. Finally, the rise of the vibration occurred in only six of the 36 total segments, which would increase the total vibration of the full revolutions approximately 6%. Since the protection system was able to be focused on the right period of segments, the measured RMS value was high enough for a clear detection. The following diagram (Figure 7) shows the safety-relevant signals of cylinder 2 over one revolution. The purple signals are at the moment of shutdown, the red signals are three hours before and the blue one represents a known good condition. For a better representation, the signals (purple, red, and blue) are shown with an offset. This high speed data was stored in the Prognost system ring buffer. The increased vibration is clearly visible between 40 and 100 CA. M a r c h 2011
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Conclusion This case study illustrates, on the basis of an automatic shutdown at that crucial moment with no human interaction, how important it is to protect a machine with modern monitoring technology to detect failures at an early stage to warn the maintenance team right in time. Also, it is important to have the opportunity to set individual limits, locate the important sensors and use the right analysis. If proper homework is done, catastrophic failure will be prevented right in time, and no consequential damages will be caused. A
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