Abstract
The Dry gas seal technology development has brought very attractive solutions for some problems occurred with centrifugal compressors that use wet seals. The problems associated with leakages of seal oil are Process contamination and catalyst poisoning with oil, an unscheduled shutdown caused by loss of control of seal oil system and/or seal oil pumps/driven failures, Lub/control oil contamination with process gas. Acomprehensive practical study has been done to investigate these problems. Ammonia synthesis gas compressor seal oil slipped three times into Low Pressure case of compressor in a very short period of 34 days. Each time a different phenomenon of slippage was observed causing a total loss of Rs. 1.4 million. An in-depth inspection of seal oil traps, instrumentation, and balancing line was carried out and root cause of the problem was identified for each subsequent event. This paper includes the details of the problem experienced, inspection carried out and recommendations to eliminate the chances of such event in future.
Keyword(s)
Synthesis Gas, Low Pressure Case, Compressor, Seal Oil Traps