Centrifugal Compressors Surge, Dry Gas Seals & API 617

What you'll learn

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Read a compressor performance map - speed curves, efficiency islands, and the envelope between surge and stonewall
Explain surge as a physical event, recognise its precursors, and assess whether the anti-surge protection is adequate
Understand dry gas seals, their supply and conditioning Requirements

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, and the consequences of losing them
Diagnose compressor problems systematically, from performance deterioration to vibration to failed components
Calculate compression duty and power, and explain how molecular weight changes the machine's behaviour
Select between capacity control methods - speed, suction throttling, inlet guide vanes and recycle - on efficiency and turndown
Specify and tune anti-surge control including recycle valve sizing and open-loop response
Apply machinery protection principles - vibration and axial position monitoring, alarm and trip settings, voting and testing
Interpret rotordynamic analysis at a practical level, including critical speeds, separation margin and stability
Plan and witness testing - mechanical running, performance, full load full pressure and string tests - and judge acceptance
Requirements

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No prior turbomachinery experience is required - compression principles are built up from the start
Any engineering or technical background is enough to follow the course
Comfortable with basic algebra - every relationship is explained before it is used
Helpful but not essential: some familiarity with reading a P&ID or an equipment datasheet
No software or purchases needed - this is an applied machinery course
Description

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This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
When the compressor stops, the unit stops. There is usually no spare, the machine costs more than most of the equipment around it combined, and the decisions that determine whether it runs reliably were made long before it arrived on site.
Compressor engineering is treated as specialist knowledge held by a small number of people, and that is exactly why it is worth learning. The concepts are not difficult. They are simply never taught in one place, in the order an engineer actually needs them.
This course teaches them in that order - from what the impeller is doing to what to witness at the works test.
WHAT YOU WILL MASTER
Five sections cover compression principles and construction, the performance map with surge and stonewall, seals, bearings and auxiliary systems, capacity control and machinery protection, and the Requirements

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of API 617 through testing to troubleshooting.
You will read a performance map properly - the constant speed curves, the efficiency islands, and the envelope bounded by surge at one end and choke at the other. You will understand how molecular weight changes the machine's behaviour, why the operating point moves when the process changes, and what performance deterioration looks like in the trend before it looks like a problem.
SURGE, IN DETAIL
What surge actually is as a physical event, not as a line on a chart. The damage it does to thrust bearings and internals. Incipient surge detection. The control line and its margin, recycle valve sizing and response speed, controller tuning, and open-loop response for fast transients. And the specific control failures that let a machine surge despite having anti-surge protection fitted.
SEALS, BEARINGS AND THE SYSTEMS THAT TRIP THE MACHINE
Dry gas seals - principle, tandem and double arrangements, seal gas supply, conditioning and filtration, separation gas, and the failure modes and their consequences. Tilting pad journal bearings and thrust arrangements. Lube oil consoles, redundancy, coolers, filters and accumulators. Because in practice, the auxiliaries trip the machine far more often than the compressor itself fails.
SPECIFICATION, TESTING AND ACCEPTANCE
The structure of API 617 and the datasheet fields that carry the risk. Rotordynamics at a practical level - critical speeds, separation margin, stability, and what the rotordynamic report should actually tell you. Mechanical running tests, performance tests, full load full pressure and string testing, and a clear view of what is worth witnessing and what can be accepted on certificate.
WHO THIS IS FOR
Rotating equipment and machinery engineers; process engineers responsible for compressor operation and control; control engineers working on anti-surge and machinery protection; reliability and maintenance engineers dealing with seals, bearings and overhauls; and project engineers buying and witnessing machinery.
WHAT YOU GET
Structured on-demand video across 20 focused lessons and five sections, a final exam, downloadable lectures, lifetime access on mobile and TV and a certificate of completion.
No prior turbomachinery experience is required - compression principles are built from the start. Any engineering or technical background is enough to follow it.
Enrol now and stop treating the compressor as the machine only the vendor understands.
Who this course is for

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Rotating equipment and machinery engineers responsible for compressor specification and performance
Process engineers operating compressors and setting their control and turndown strategy
Control and instrument engineers working on anti-surge control and machinery protection systems
Reliability and maintenance engineers dealing with seals, bearings, overhauls and vibration
Project and commissioning engineers buying machinery and witnessing factory and site testing
Graduate engineers entering rotating equipment roles and meeting a compressor for the first time
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