Developing Centrifugal Compressor Performance Predicting Tool For Health Monitoring

The aim of this project is to develop predicting tool for centrifugal compressor performance in petrochemical industry. The predicting tool was developed as part of predictive maintenance strategy in assisting maintenance monitoring of the equipment. It is important for a production plant to maintain the performance of centrifugal compressor because performance deterioration has significant impact in their production especially profit of a company that depends on continuous operation. Thus, centrifugal compressor model was developed using thermodynamics principle which is the Schultz Polytropic Analysis. The predicting tool was developed by using Microsoft Excel and Visual Basic Application for Graphical User Interface (GUI). Microsoft Excel is used because it is cheaper compared to other software and users can change the source code anytime they wish to. In order to analyze a centrifugal compressor, historical data of low pressure and high pressure centrifugal compressor from PETRONAS Carigali, Kerteh were used for performance analysis. The tool developed is able to give the compressor polytropic head, efficiency and gas power for given input conditions.. Based on the results obtained, both compressors are operating at optimum condition but the efficiency of high pressure compressor is lower compared to low pressure compressor. Therefore, this tool can assist plant operators to monitor the performance of centrifugal compressor which is useful information for predicting maintenance.