ON TEST UNCERTAINTIES IN FIELD PERFORMANCE TESTS

摘要

Field testing of gas turbine or electric motor driven compressor packages requires the accurate determination of efficiency, capacity, head, or power consumption in sometimes less than ideal working environments. Nonetheless, field test results have significant implication for the compressor and gas turbine manufacturers and their customers. Economic considerations demand that the performance and efficiency of an installation are verified to assure the return on investment for the project. Thus, for the compressor and gas turbine manufacturers, as well as for the end-user, an accurate determination of the field performance is of vital interest. This paper discusses a method to determine the measurement uncertainty and, thus, the accuracy, of test results under the typical constraints of a site performance test, for compressors capable of variable speed operation. Namely, a method is presented which can be employed to verify the validity of field test performance results. Results are compared with actual field test results, using redundant methods. Typical field test measurement uncertainties are presented for different sets of instrumentation. The effect of different equations of state on the calculated performance is also discussed. Test parameters that correlate to the most significant influence on the performance uncertainties are identified and suggestions are provided on how to minimize their measurement errors. Results show that compressor efficiency uncertainties can be unacceptably high when some basic rules for accurate testing are violated. However, by following some simple measurement rules and maintaining commonality of the gas equations of state, the overall compressor package performance measurement uncertainty can be limited and meaningful results can be achieved.