Load-Sharing With Degradation Management in a Compressor Station

Management of compressor degradation is often considered from the perspective of maintenance of the compressor, but most frameworks for the operation of compressors do not take degradation into account. This paper proposes a method for operation of compressors that takes into account the current level of degradation in order to manage further degradation. The algorithm can be used in maintenance planning frameworks, in particular if the timings of maintenance activities are fixed. The algorithm can extend the lifetime of a compressor by mitigating its degradation, or, conversely, can intensify the degradation to reach the maximum level in time for planned maintenance. The performance of the algorithm has been demonstrated in a case study for five compressors. A comparison with equal load approach shows that the new algorithm improves the operation of the system by managing the degradation of selected compressors. Explicit management of degradation allows an extension of the lifetime of selected compressors before maintenance must be performed. Conversely, by ensuring that the desired level of degradation is attained before pre-planned maintenance actions, it contributes to increased efficacy of maintenance actions. Note to Practitioners—The paper presents a new framework for load-sharing in a compressor station with compressors subject to degradation. The main innovation of the framework is the use of relationships between custom degradation indicators to manage degradation of the compressors. The results in the paper prove that it is possible to manage degradation in an industrial setting by adjusting the load of each compressor. From a practical perspective, the framework allows more degraded compressors to follow the less degraded compressors (called leaders). The simplicity of the proposed framework enables an intuitive choice of leaders, in particular in compressor stations with more than two compressors. Focused directly on the load sharing, the framework also avoids adjusting lower level control structures, such as speed control or surge protection. The simplicity and the fact that the load-sharing algorithm affects only the loads make the new framework quickly implementable on a high level of the operating system in a compressor station. The limitation of the framework is that the parameters of the framework must be adjusted manually to ensure that the compressors stay within their operating ranges. For instance, the parameters of the algorithm can be chosen in such a way that the load-sharing aims to strike a balance between multiple compressors. The next step would be to give a demonstration of the method on a high-fidelity industrial simulator that acts as a proxy for a real compressor station.