Webinar Description:

Reciprocating compressors play a critical role in a number of industries but require more maintenance than a comparable turbo-compressor. An effective condition monitoring and diagnostics strategy therefore plays an extremely important role for reducing downtime and life cycle costs of these machines while increasing reliability, safety, integrity and efficiency. There are a number of monitoring techniques that are available for detecting wear, component failure, leaks and other faults in reciprocating compressors that have been developed over the years. This case study presents an innovative method for implementing some of these techniques in an enterprise-wide data historian for optimizing the monitoring strategy.

Cornerstone Chemical Company (CCC), located in Louisiana, USA, has had maintenance issues with their two 3-throw, 3-stage reciprocating compressors for several years now. These compress CO2 in an ammonium carbamate process for making urea, which is then converted into melamine. There have been issues with the valves and other faults, including cylinder liner fractures, and their legacy monitoring solution was not providing sufficient warning of defects. There was also not sufficient diagnostic expertise to deal with this situation, so reactive maintenance was done, resulting in expensive downtime. Another solution was needed.

Brüel & Kjær Vibro (B&K Vibro) together with TF Hudgins took up the challenge to solve this problem for CCC. The monitoring techniques themselves that were offered were by no means different than what has been used by the industry over the years, but their implementation was innovative. The AVEVA™ PI system™, which is being implemented in industries all around the world, provides an overview of all production assets from both an operational and maintenance perspective. It is no longer necessary to use proprietary servers for storing condition monitoring data.

The B&K Vibro VC-8000 Setpoint condition monitoring system continuously delivers monitoring data to the AVEVA™ PI System™. Specialized plots such as pressure volume (PV) diagrams and rod load, however, are only done in the Setpoint system, but can be easily accessed from PI by a click. The AVEVA™ PI System™ can also do much of the performance analytics with its powerful calculation engine. For visualization and notifications of alarms, the TrendMiner system is used, which imports data from the PI system, and also provides analytics.

The end result of this digital transformation project is that it provided a cost-effective, easier and more transparent way of managing data, better overview on the healthcare of the machines and less IT cost in maintaining stand-alone database servers.

Learning Takeaways:

• Learn about the maintenance and challenges of a specific customer’s reciprocating compressors, and how the monitoring requirements were made
• Learn how the AVEVA™ PI System™ can be used in a condition monitoring perspective for providing a common database for all machines and process data, and for performing analytics
• Learn how the AVEVA™ PI System™ takes in data from the B&K Vibro monitoring system and how this system’s specialized plots are seamlessly displayed in PI
• Learn how other service providers such as TrendMiner are integrated into the AVEVA™ PI System™ for displaying an overview of the healthcare of all assets, and providing notification of events, and even additional analytics.

About the Presenters:

• Mike Hastings is a Sr. Application Engineer with Bruel & Kjaer Vibro, where he has been working for the past 33 years. Here he has worked with developing various condition monitoring strategies and optimization techniques for various machines, and is currently working with strategic market development, analysis and communications. He has written numerous articles, papers and webinars on machine condition monitoring, especially in the LNG industry. He is also convenor for an ISO work group for creating standards for condition monitoring and diagnostics of machines.
• Anthony Fregosi achieved his B.S.Ch.E from the University of Florida in 1987 along with his E.I.T. (currently known as an F.E.). Throughout his career, he has worked as a Process/Production Engineer, Process Safety and Environmental Compliance Coordinator, and is currently a Sr. Mfg. Systems Engineer with Cornerstone Chemical Company. Anthony is a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (F.AIChE), which is the highest level of membership, limited to only 5% of the total institute membership. He is a self-starter who works diligently to achieve key objectives on time and with limited supervision.
• Jon Fox  has 21 years of experience in software development and product management, 12 of those spent with SETPOINT® and Brüel & Kjær Vibro. He led the original development team for SETPOINT® software and was also instrumental in the design of the VC-8000 Platform. Jonathan studied at the University of Idaho, where he was awarded a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. He works out of our Gardnerville (NV) office.