Development of Diagnostic Program for Gas Compressor using Knowledge Based Management Concept

Compressor maintenance is vital in oil and gas industry because it is an important equipment that runs continuously. Among all of the deterioration mechanisms, fouling is found to be the most common in oil and gas industry and it is relatively easier to be analyzed. Currently, plant engineers face difficulties in predicting the appropriate time for maintenance and usually they will follow the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) recommendations. Most plant engineers do not have a predictive tool to advise them on compressor maintenance and the necessary steps to be taken. Usually, the engineers will only attend to the equipment when problems or abnormalities arise from it, apart from the planned maintenance. Late decision made on compressor maintenance will sometimes cause problems to operation either due to late arrival of spare parts or staff availability. The objective of this project is to develop a software that will be able to assist engineers in determining the performance deterioration of gas compressor and deciding the optimum time to do maintenance. The maintenance history data is collected and analysed by the software regularly. The correlations between isentropic efficiency, isentropic head, and gas power and the compressor deterioration are studied based on two centrifugal gas compressors from January 2009 to December 2010. Later, a software that is able to produce maintenance advice based on the input parameters given by the user is created. The software is developed using Microsoft Excel 2010 and Microsoft Visual Basic. From the analysis conducted, it is found that due to fouling, isentropic efficiency and isentropic head decrease with time for low pressure compressors. In contrast, the gas power increases with time. Based on these findings, Performance Indicators Monitoring Program (PIMP) is developed.