Expanding the MCS of Refinery Process Compressor through Operating-Speed Balancing at 10,500 rpm

This paper deals with the operating-speed (high-speed) balancing of a refinery gasoline HDS (hydrodesulfurization) process recycle-gas 8-stages compressor rotor. A low-speed balancing condition of the rotor was measured as maintaining the G2.5 level. But an inspection run of operating-speed balancing condition, using tilting-pad journal bearings of actual use, showed that while it could be continuously-operated safely at a rated speed of 10,500 rpm, the rotor would not be able to run over 11,000 rpm as the vibration increased very sharply, approaching 11,000 rpm. In order to cure that a series of operating-speed balancing, which first calculated balance correction-weights by applying the influence coefficient measured and calculated at 10,500 rpm and then implemented correction works, was carried-out. The final operating-speed balancing results showed that the vibrations at the bearing pedestals represented very good levels of 0.2 mm/s by decreasing to as much as the 1/10 of the original vibrations and particularly, even at a targeted maximum continuous operating speed, MCS, of 11,500 rpm the vibrations represented about 1 mm/s, which is the operating-speed balancing vibration specification of API. Therefore, the expansion of MCS was successfully accomplished through the operating-speed balancing.