Condition Indicators for Centrifugal Compressor – A Review

Abstract

Centrifugal compressors have been widely applied and acted as a crucial component in gas and oil industries, due to their excellent performance in providing high pressure ratios, large operating ranges with relatively high efficiencies etc. Breakdowns or deteriorated performance can bring significant economic loss to the companies. Given the importance and the crucial role played by these machines, monitoring their status and performing fault diagnosis have become increasingly important. This paper provides a systematical review of condition monitoring and fault diagnosis techniques for centrifugal compressor. Some unique fault types of centrifugal compressors are also investigated, like stall, surge, fouling and impeller fault, which are not usually seen on other rotating machinery. In terms of fault diagnosis, condition indicators which are calculated from multiple signals, can effectively reflect the health status of the machinery. This paper reviewed the common faults and the related state-of-the-art fault diagnostic techniques of a centrifugal compressor. Some condition indicators that are extracted from performance, vibration, acoustic emission and other measurements for centrifugal compressor incipient diagnosis are recommended. Furthermore, several currently used machinery fault diagnostic systems for the centrifugal compressor are investigated.