DYNAMIC SIMULATION OF CENTRIFUGAL COMPRESSOR STARTUP WITH INLET GUIDE VANE

To achieve safe and efficient operation of centrifugal compressors, understanding the transient behavior of the compression system and reflecting such characteristics into the design of compressors and peripheral equipment early in the plant engineering stage are important. Since such transient states cannot be completely studied by static analysis alone, additional analyses using plant's dynamic model are desired. To utilize for compressor design and process verification in the engineering phase, a dynamic simulator specialized for compressor systems has been developed. The presented work demonstrates an example of the way the simulator was used for a preparatory investigation of the Mixed Refrigerant (MR) compressor start up in an LNG plant. The simulation results showed that motor acceleration could be successfully accomplished by using the throttled inlet guide vanes (IGVs) for lowering the load torque and that the compressor could generate the required liquefaction pressure at settle out condition.