Computer Program Development To Analyse Centrifugal Compressor Performance

A centrifugal compressor, which is driven by a gas turbine, is one of the critical
equipment used in oil and gas industry especially in the offshore platform (upstream
operation) and need a regular performance monitoring. The compressor is used in a
variety of applications including gas lift, gas injection, transmission, boosting and gas
sales. The performance test of turbo-compressor requires the accurate determination of
the efficiency, flow, head, power and losses. The objective ofthis project is to develop a
computer program (TCCalc VI.0) that has the ability to calculate and analyse the
centrifugal compressorperformance characteristics.
This program provides an easy and useful ways to track or estimate centrifugal
compressor performance from manufacturer supplied performance curves. Since the
manual calculation using the individual head versus capacity curves to predict the
overall performance of a multiple body tandem is a time consuming trial-and-error
calculation, the development of this computer program is an alternative to overcome this
problem. The study scopes of this project are the working principle of a compressor,
thermodynamic behavior of the gases, performance tests, calculation methods, data
analysis, performance curves andthe computer program development itself.
The methodology used in this project including the literature review, plant visit,
calculations and also the computer and software applications. At the end, the calculation
results of the program have to be compared with the real operating data in order to test
the accuracy of the program.
111