Compressor sealing - an overview.Is our decision-making process,before specification,the weak link in rotating machinery sealing systems?

摘要

Stringent legal environmental requirements,such as zero emissions to the local atmosphere and poor reliability of existing sealing technology,forced the Industry to set new Sealing Technology standards.the first issue of API Standard 682 in October 1994 provided indeed a standard for pump seals and systems.Yet no similar standard exists for dry gas seals and systems for compressors.Such a standard would simplify things by having standardised piping and filter plans for single,double and triple seal arrangements and would dispense with over complicated specialised systems.In the absence of an accepted standard most compressor manufacturers have,over the last decade,developed "standardised" control and monitoring systems based on their own design criteria for seals and systems.However there is also evidence that where operators and purchasers are allowed to indulge in "hobbyism" unnecessarily complicated control packages have been selected.