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Monday, September 10, 2012

Centrifugal Compressors


Norm – A quick question. A relatively minor surging incident has severely damaged our compressor. We have experienced much worse and longer periods of surging without noticeable damage. Why this extreme damage now?

--Harry Hambin

P.S. Regards to Liz

 

Dear Henry – Hope you had a good holiday. It could be that the main bearing lube pump is driven off of the compressor shaft itself. Then, if the auxiliary lube oil pump failed to come-on automatically, with the resulting low lube oil pressure (assuming the compressor itself tripped-off due to surging and was then restarted by the operators), this could have damaged the radically support bearings. If the thrust bearing is not particularly damaged, this would support my theory. Hope this helps you.

--Norm

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