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Eliminate leaks from reciprocating

compressor packings
Reciprocating compressors continue to play a vital role in both refineries
and gas transport operations. A revolutionary new technology that replaces

Christian Hold Hoerbiger

R
eciprocating compressors are an essential
part of the hydrocarbon supply chain. Their
ruggedness, flexibility, and ability to be
driven directly from engines running on natural
gas makes them valuable in gas production, gas
re-injection, and pipeline transport. In refineries,
recips high energy efficiency and ability to gener-
ate pressures of 3,000 psi and above are key to
the safe and economic handling hydrogen and
hydrogen-rich gas mixtures.
In the wider process industries recips are
appreciated just as highly: the last ACHEMA, for
instance, featured no fewer that 17 companies
exhibiting under the heading piston Figure 1 Conventional rod packings made from solid
compressors. materials will always show some degree of gas leakage
Compared to turbocompressors, recips are
inherently long-lived thanks to their robust ings. The new XperSEAL rod sealing system uses
construction and low operating speeds (typically pressurised oil to keep the gas in place, ensuring
a few hundred RPM). Fitted with the latest genuinely leak-free sealing for the lifetime of the
valves, sealing components, and capacity control compressor. This radically new sealing system is
systems, properly maintained recips boast effi- fail-safe, can be retrofitted easily to existing
ciencies that will surprise anyone who thinks of compressors, and uses no more oil than a
them as old technology. conventional lubricated packing.
With todays emphasis on minimising emis- The new sealing system has been tested
sions to atmosphere, however, there is one aspect successfully at three plants handling natural gas.
of recips that operators must consider seriously: In each case, XperSEAL was able to eliminate gas
the need for piston rod seals (Figure 1). Thanks leakage. The amount of oil used was no higher
to modern materials and computer-aided design than that required for conventional rod packings.
techniques, high-performance rod packings such
as HOERBIGERs BCD can achieve practically Conventional packings eventually leak
zero gas leakage when they are new. Over time, High-performance conventional rod seals are
however, wear is inevitable and with wear made from materials such as filled PTFE, graph-
comes leakage that can have significant financial ite, bronze, and elastomers. These work very
and environmental consequences. well, but their more-or-less rigid components can
Thanks to recent developments at never conform perfectly to the surface of the
HOERBIGER, it is now possible for the first time piston rod, while sliding contact means that some
to completely eliminate gas leaks from rod pack- wear is inevitable over time. The result is gas

www.digitalrefining.com/article/1001149 August 2015 1


static seals actuated by compressed air whenever
the machine is at a standstill. These solutions,
while effective, add to the cost and complexity of
the compressor as a whole.
Safety, too, is a cost multiplier for gas leakage.
To prevent the buildup of flammable or toxic
gases the latter including natural gas contain-
i n g
significant levels of benzene, for example pack-
ing boxes are often fitted with a nitrogen purge.
This increases capital and operating costs, espe-
cially when the distance piece between the
cylinder and the crankcase is also purged.
Compressors lacking a distance piece (API 618,
Figure 2 The new packing design uses pressurized oil to 6.12.1.3 type B) may also require their crankcases
keep the gas in place. The oil, in turn, is retained by two to be pressurised with nitrogen to stop leaks of
sealing rings flammable gas from dissolving in the crankcase
oil. Again, this adds cost.
leakage. Finally, there is a good environmental argu-
A typical oil-lubricated packing on a medium ment that the true cost of natural gas leaks is
size compressor leaks 300 liters/hour of gas in much higher than the market value of the lost
the best case, so overall losses are often in the gas. Thanks to methanes very high global warm-
range 5001500 liters/hour per compressor, or ing potential, the value of methane in terms of its
over 6 tons/year. Worn or damaged packings can social cost of carbon (SCC) is 618 times
leak at much higher rates, and higher natural gas greater than its market price. Organisations that
prices or higher values of other process gases take their carbon footprints seriously, or simply
can change the economics to the point where face carbon taxes, will find that these inflated
stopping leaks is worthwhile. costs justify taking gas leakage seriously.
Several other factors can also increase the
effective cost of gas leaks. For instance, it is not A genuinely leak-free sealing solution
uncommon for compressors to remain pressur- For applications where high gas costs or short
ised when they are stationary. Under these packing life encourage operators to cut leak rates,
conditions standard rod seals give very high leak- XperSEAL offers a truly leak-free alternative. It
age rates, so the usual solution is to add special works by surrounding the piston rod with pres-
surised oil rather than solid packing
rings. Since the oil conforms perfectly
to the surface of the rod, gas cannot
leak out as long as the oil pressure is
above the pressure in the cylinder.
This is true even when the compres-
sor is stationary, so a compressor that
must remain pressurised during shut-
down does not need extra static seals
to back up the XperSEAL system.
The oil, in turn, is kept in place by
two specially-designed sealing rings
(1 and 2 in Figure 2). Unlike the
sealing rings in a conventional pack-
ing box, the working principle
appears easy, in fact it is more chal-
Figure 3 Cross-section of the new zero-emission packing. The cylinder lenging to get the oil seals working
is to the left and the crankcase to the right compared to standard gas seals.

2 August 2015 www.digitalrefining.com/article/1001149


These rings operate virtually wear-free, because compressor seal must accommodate a much
they ride on a film of oil at all times. greater range of rod movement perpendicular to
As well as the oil seal rings (Figure 3a, b, and the main axis of motion.
c), the complete XperSEAL packing contains two Designing an oil seal that will pump effectively
or three conventional single-acting packing rings requires an understanding of viscous flow, hydro-
(1), a buffer volume (2), and a wiper ring (4). All dynamics, and elasticity. The seal lip is designed
the rings are free to move laterally with the so that the motion of the rod pulls the oil film
piston rod. into a narrowing gap. As the oil velocity
Any oil leaking past the oil seal ring on the increases, so too does the hydrodynamic pres-
crankcase side (3c) is wiped off the rod by the oil sure. If this pressure is large enough, it forces the
wiper (4) and recovered via a drain line. oil back into the packing case. Since the shape of
The buffer volume (2) lowers the gas pressure the seal lip deforms under pressure, the design
against which the oil has to act, allowing the oil calculation becomes an iterative process.
pressure to be set just above the suction pressure With several much larger-scale iterations of the
of the cylinder and so reducing the loads on the design, HOERBIGER engineers have succeeded
oil seal rings. Without the buffer, the oil pressure in developing sealing rings that return more than
would have to be set above the cylinder discharge 99% of the oil leakage to the packing case during
pressure, so loads and wear rates would be the in-stroke of the piston. The resulting net oil
higher. loss is no higher than that from a conventional
The buffer volume remains at the suction pres- lubricated packing: typically 0.51.5 liter/day per
sure thanks to the conventional packing rings (1) packing. And, since the sealing rings ride on a
upstream. Any leakage past these rings during film of oil at all times, their wear rate is practi-
the compression stroke will increase the pressure cally zero.
in the buffer, but because the rings are single-act- The core of the new system therefore meets its
ing, the pressure immediately falls again during three the original design goals: oil consumption
the suction stroke. In practice, even worn rings no higher than for a conventional packing; stable
are capable of holding the buffer volume at the operation under a wide variety of operating
suction pressure. conditions and with many start/stop cycles; and
at least 8,000 hours between service intervals.
Pump effect minimises oil loss
So far, so good but since we require sealing Ensuring a failsafe system
rings to keep the oil in place, have we not simply The pressurised oil for the packing box comes
exchanged one sealing problem for another? It is from a purpose-designed oil supply unit that is
true that oil will always leak past the sealing approved for use in explosive environments
rings, just as gas leaks from a conventional pack- (Figure 4). This circulates oil at a defined flow-
ing box. However, there are two important rate and pressure through the channels in the oil
differences from the conventional setup. barrier, where it picks up frictional heat released
First, the much higher viscosity of oil compared by the oil seal rings. On its return journey the oil
to gas means that the rate of oil leakage is very is cooled by an integral heat exchanger, so no
slow. Second, almost all of the oil that leaks out additional packing cooling is required. Depending
of the packing is pumped back in by the motion on rod size, speed, and gas pressure, one oil unit
of the rod. can supply up to six packing cases.
The idea of a seal that pumps oil seems coun- The oil supply unit continuously monitors the
ter-intuitive, but in fact it is a well-known oil temperature, pressure and level. In the event
property of hydraulic seals. The difference is that of excessive oil loss or a loss of pressure, the
it has never before been applied to compressor system switches automatically into failsafe mode
seals, and for understandable reasons. One meas- (Figure 5, bottom).
ure of the difficulty of a sealing problem is the In failsafe mode the system simply acts as a
product of differential pressure and mean rod conventional vented pressure packing, with no
speed, known as the load collective; in the case of power supply needed. The conventional packing
the new seal this is much higher than for a typi- rings (1 in Figure 3) take over the job of gas
cal hydraulic seal. The other reason is that the sealing, and the oil supply line acts as a vent

www.digitalrefining.com/article/1001149 August 2015 3


line. The buffer volume is at vent compressor, to real-world opera-
pressure, and the downstream oil tion at customer sites.
seal ring (3c in Figure 3) works Thousands of hours of field
as a vent seal. In applications operation have confirmed the
where a purge system would performance of the current
normally be used, this can be design. These tests have taken
arranged to switch in when the place at a natural gas gathering
system enters failsafe mode. and treatment plant, a natural
The use of the buffer volume to gas/biogas compressor station
reduce the necessary oil pressure fueling a fleet of city buses, and a
does have one potential drawback large propane refrigeration
if the compressor remains pres- compressor.
surised when it is stationary. With the systems running as
Under these conditions, a leaking designed, gas leakage has been
discharge valve could allow the zero. The failsafe design has also
buffer pressure to rise to the full Figure 4 The central oil supply been tested extensively under field
discharge pressure, which is unit incorporates an oil pump, conditions. The biggest challenge
higher than that of the oil. The oil cooler, and functions for has been to keep oil use to an
solution is straightforward: the oil control, monitoring and safety acceptable level; after several
supply unit increases the oil pres- design iterations, the current seal
sure temporarily whenever the compressor is at profile now maintains oil consumption at or
a standstill. below its previous values at all three of the
Because the packing box itself is built up from demonstration plants.
individual components, the system is easy to In conclusion, this new approach to piston rod
retrofit and can be tailored for any compressor sealing ensures:
size. absolutely no gas leakage;
no increase in oil consumption, and typically a
Confirming real-world performance reduction;
The most fundamental challenge in developing no use of purge gas except under fault
the new sealing system was to choose a profile conditions;
for the main seals that combines effective pump- no need for a separate packing cooling system;
ing, and hence low oil loss, with reliability. no need for an additional static sealing system
HOERBIGER engineers achieved this through in applications where the compressor is kept
an extensive program that progressed from labo- pressurised during standstill;
ratory rigs, through the companys in-house test continuous condition monitoring.
The new leak-free packing will
not be necessary or appropriate
for every reciprocating compres-
sor, but it is surely of interest in
cases in which low gas leakage
has proved difficult to achieve, or
where safety or environmental
restrictions set stringent limits on
acceptable leakage rates.

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Figure 5 Normal operation (top) and failsafe mode (above). In failsafe mode category: Rotating Equipment
the system operates as a conventional vented packing, with purge if required

4 August 2015 www.digitalrefining.com/article/1001149

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