Emerson Process Management - CSI

DoctorKnow Application Paper

Title: Source/Author: Product: Technology: Classification: Vibration Analysis Of Cooper GMV Integral Reciprocating Engine/Compressor Cecil Demeritt Data Collector/Analyzer Vibration

This paper will not address all potential problems of the Cooper Integral Engine/Compressors but will concentrate on crank shaft deflection, excessive bearing wear, and mounting problems. The largest users of the Cooper Integral Engine/Compressors are gas pipeline and air separation companies. Another use is for gas injection into oil wells to maintain the pressure of the oil flow, the gas can always be taken out of the ground after the oil supply is depleted. Analysis of the Cooper Integral Reciprocating Engine/Compressors units can, at best, be difficult. It is important to understand how the unit is designed and actually performs the work it must do. Another consideration is how the machine is mounted and what vibration/motion can occur when there are problems with the mounting system. All machines including large reciprocating engine/compressors have inherent vibration/Motion that is normal to its function. By understanding the normal vibration/motion the unit should have it is easier to determine when a abnormal vibration/motion occurs and it can be recognized immediately as a fault/problem that has developed in the machine or in the mounting of the machine. The first thing to understand is how the machine is designed, what moving components it has and, just as important, what common components it does not have. The Cooper Integral Engine/Compressor is a V-bank engine that drives horizontal mounted reciprocating compressor cylinders. The Cooper has a unique method of driving the compressor cylinders. The compressor cylinders are driven directly off of the engine crank shaft with a specially designed articulated connector/rod system that is unique to Cooper units. The Cooper GMV 6 has six (6) engine power cylinders, in two banks of three cylinders, and two (2) horizontal reciprocating compressor cylinders. There fore there are 11 bearings and 8 rods connecting to the crank shaft. It is very important to remember there are no couplings in the Cooper units. The normal vibration/motion of the Coopers is: - Radial (vertical & horizontal) vibration on the crank shaft bearings - Vertical vibration on the engine cylinder bearings - Horizontal vibration on the compressor cylinder bearings - Axial vibration should be minimal as no couplings (misalignment of shafts) are present in the unit. These motions are easily trended by taking data at the end of each cylinder (engine & compressor) in horizontal, vertical and axial directions at each main bearing area. It is extremely important to take data on the tail bearing of these machines. Under normal conditions the vibration (velocity, displacement and/or acceleration) data will have very small amplitudes. Of all the problems that can occur with these units the most dangerous and costly (in parts and repair time) is crank shaft deflection. Excessive crank shaft deflection can and will cause failure of the crank shaft, in other words the crank shaft will break. Crank shaft breakage usually causes a great deal of secondary damage to other machine components. Stories of one or more pieces of the crank shaft breaking through the main engine housing and tearing up other machines around it is not uncommon. In some cases the engine flywheel has come loose and ran around doing damage to other machines and the building. Just think of a mass of steel weighing several hundred pounds, approximately four and one-half feet in diameter and is turning at 300 RPM. This much mass/inertia will not stop quickly or easily. This type of failure damages and/or destroys other components i.e.: - webs
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Emerson Process Management - CSI

- engine and compressor bearings - engine and compressor rods - pistons - scoring of cylinder walls Usually when a crank shaft breaks the replacement parts bill (example Cooper GMV 6) will be in excess of $200,000 dollars, not counting any loss of production or man-hours to replace/repair the broken and/or damaged components. There are two major causes of crank shaft deflection: 1) Excessive bearing wear, most dangerous to the machine would be excessive wear of the center bearing. 2) Mis-alignment of the crank haft bearings, usually due to uneven settlement of the foundation. Excessive bearing wear/clearance will provide warning signs before the crank shaft deflection gets too severe. Usually the subharmonic frequencies indicating signs of oil whip/oil whirl, rub (at 40 - 50 % running speed vibration) and a 1 X running speed vertical vibration appear. These increases, with good trending of parameter bands, can be noted before the danger point is reached. Mis-alignment of the crank shaft bearings due to settlement of the foundation can occur almost overnight, this problem is usually considered the most alarming and dangerous. Indications are a large increase in axial vibration with a sub-harmonic and 1 X running speed as the predominate frequencies. Also a increase in radial vibration will occur. Examples of this type of data are below:

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Emerson Process Management - CSI

From analysis of the data it was recommended this unit be shut down, two checks/tests were recommended on this unit: 1) Webb deflection test 2) Bearing lift check A lift check of the crank shaft bearings revealed excessive clearance (approximately 0.005" over maximum recommended clearance) in the center crank shaft bearing. A web deflection showed almost no movement at the end webs (0.0005") but there was 0.003" deflection at the center web. Continued operation would have resulted in the failure of the crank shaft. The cause of
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Emerson Process Management - CSI

this problem was settlement of the foundation causing mis-alignment of the crank shaft bearings. The misalignment of the crank shaft bearings was severe enough to overload the center bearing causing accelerated wear and to allow the crank shaft to have a whipping motion similar to the motion of a bent shaft. Looseness/degradation of the foundation and grouting of the machine will cause a increased horizontal vibration with a predominate 1 X running speed vibration. Sometimes a horizontal vibration that is equal to the number of compressor cylinders times running speed will also be in the data. Regardless it must be remembered that the machine should not have a large horizontal vibration. Below is a plot showing excessive horizontal movement indicating a foundation and/or grouting problem.

Questions asked, of the maintenance personnel, at the site revealed that they had noted a unusual vibration on this unit. The maintenance crew, approximately one week before this data was taken, had tightened the case to foundation bolts. Even though these bolts had been tightened there was still excessive horizontal vibration on the machine. A visual inspection of the grouting and foundation showed movement all around the base of this unit. When you can see oil/water being squirted out from between the case and foundation it=s obvious there is a problem. Excessive horizontal vibration/motion is highly detrimental to large reciprocating Integral Engine /Compressors. If the machine vibration/rock gets out of synchronization with the motion of the horizontally mounted compressors this will multiple the forces the compressor rods, rod bearings and main bearings will be subjected to. In addition, this could cause instability in the oil wedge and allow the moving shaft to touch the babbit. This increased loading of the rods and the rod bearings will cause premature failure of these components. In addition, it should be noted that excessive horizontal vibration/motion will cause the horizontal compressor support legs to fail leaving the weight of . the compressor cylinders unsupported. This will cause increased side loading of the compressor pistons, bending/flexing of the compressor rods, excessive loading of the rod pins and rod bearings. Two other conditions that are common with these units and tips to spot them are: 1) Power Cylinder Problems - Power cylinders are mounted into two vertical V-banks, therefore most problems with the power cylinders can be detected by readings taken at the Cylinder Head. The exception to this is a when one cylinder is firing too weak or too strong (unbalance of reciprocating forces) and this will show up in the horizontal direction. Time waveform in acceleration is a good method of trending for these problems. 2) Compressor Cylinder problems - Compressor cylinder problems usually can best be detected from reading on the cylinder head, it can show up in any axis depending on the problem. Rod slap usually shows up axial to the cylinder, excessive piston drag

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Emerson Process Management - CSI

shows up both radial and axial directions and wrist pin problem usually show up in the radial direction. Again time waveform acceleration is the extremely useful. Data collection, taken in the right places, taken with the correct parameters and properly trended will usually catch these problems before they can cause a premature failure. As can be noted in the data most of the readings are taken in velocity, additional off-route displacement data was taken when the horizontal velocity increased. This is by no means all there is to vibration analysis of a Cooper Integral Engine/Compressor machine, however, this gives a good start for identifying the most dangerous and detrimental problems. All contents copyright 1998 - 2006, Computational Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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