Compressor Seal Oil Control

Compressor Seal Oil system A case study

Richard Hughes

Introduction
I have a short case study to present. With hindsight the solution is pretty obvious but I
think its interesting as a demonstration that simple problem can be hidden by a complex
simulation.
A PID pressure controller on a seal oil system would periodically oscillate and the cause
was not understood. It was not clear if it was the PID loop causing the problem or if it
was reacting to outside disturbances.

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated

(Confucius)
The business schools reward difficult complex behaviour more than simple
behaviour, but simple behaviour is more effective.
(Warren Buffett)

Compressor seal oil

dP

Flare

Compressor Seal/Control Oil system

Seal oil system looks very complicated
5 high pressure and 5 low pressure oil users
3 oil pumps ( 2 on line 1 spare ) ,
32 pipe sections
Two sets of filters and coolers
Many issues
Can not survive transition from two to one pumps [expensive!]
System would work for a few months then pressure swings would start
and the relief valves would feather open.
Relief valves looked at , pumps looked at
Usual fix was to work on the control valve and its positioner
Had been a problem for > 20 years

History

Dynamic simulation carried out when plant owned by ICI ( 1983 )

Some system changes made as a result of this

Valve characteristics changed

Some recommendations to change pipe lengths
Some recent concerns about 250ms scan time on DCS PID controller
Recent question if we should have positioner or not

Re-visited in 2009 as many plant trips due to seal oil system

We will see later the dynamic model is very complicated but fails to model
the key features of the system.
Conclusions drawn from a highly accurate model that modelled a lot of unnecessary detail but did not capture what was important
The simulation gave no insight into the problem

Simple simulation simulink / matlab

Simulate 2 1
pumps

PC

DPC

Header pressure usually held at 430 psi

( Relief valves prevent us running higher )

Oil Capacity 2

SEAL

Oil Capacity 1

210 psi

Five users but

limiting one is high
pressure process
gas compressor .
(Casing at 210psi)

Trip <40psi dP for

10 seconds

SIMPLE MODEL OF OIL COMPRESSIBILITY

Vo

. V .dt

Bpipe

1
C

P = pressure (psi)
V = volume flow into system ( m3/sec)
C = system capacitance
V0 = total volume of system (m3)
B = bulk modulus (psi) =

Boil

Bpipe

70 , 000

psi/m3

d = wall thickness
D = pipe diameter
E = modulus of elasticity = 29500000 psi (cold rolled steel )

1 m3 oil with B = 72,500 psi

50m of 6 pipe with 10mm wall.
Rough Guesses but not critical !

SIMPLE VALVE MODELS

CV . K .V .

dP
sg

F = flow (m3/hr)
dP = pressure drop across valve (psi)
CV = valve CV
K = 0.227 , conversion for CV in US gallons per minute
Sg = 0.83 = specific gravity
V = fractional valve opening ( 0 to 1 )

Kickback valve CV is 34.2 ; other valve modelled as sum of 5 valve CVs .

Seal resistance modelled as valve and CV chosen to match plant oil flow

Validation looks good

plant
data

Simulation

Recovery time
from pump trip

120 secs

140 secs

Minimum
pressure
reached

160 psi

160 psi

33 %

38 %

Valve
movement

But is it

430 PSI

250 PSI
160 PSI

Remove interpolation

But is it
Pressure falls in 1 scan period of historian
Tells us nothing about the response time of the system except its < 10secs

Recovery time
Function of controller tuning
430 PSI

250 PSI
160 PSI

Low pressure ( and valve travel ) function of halving flow

And valve CVs only

In the simulation the PID tuning can be made much faster

So what have we failed to model

The header pressure PID loop parameters tell us a lot
Gain Kp = 0.04 % per %,

Integral time

Ti = 0.03 min

So what have we failed to model

The header pressure PID loop parameters tell us a lot
Gain Kp = 0.04 % per %,

Integral time

Ti = 0.03 min

If the actual plant tuning numbers matched ZN open loop method

then
Ti = 3.3.Td = 0.03 mins which tells us our dead time is
probably of the order of 0.6s
Kp

= 0.9/K * ( T/Td )

= 0.04 % / %

So low proportional gain tells us either process gain K is very

high or Td >> T
Back of an envelope shows the process gain is of the order of 2
Which implies a process time constant of 0.1 sec and a dead
time of about 0.6 s

So what have we failed to model

The header pressure PID loop parameters tell us a lot
Gain Kp = 0.04 % per %,

Integral time

Ti = 0.03 min

In fact for dominant dead time processes they are usually tuned with
much more integral and lower gain.
Typically

Ti = Td/3

Kp = 0.18 / K

This would imply dead time of about 5 seconds and time constant
of about 0.1 seconds.
This is pretty reasonable the hydraulic oil is virtually
incompressible and we can easily get to a few seconds or so of dead
time
Adding two seconds of dead time to the simulation was enough to
prevent us raising the controller gain beyond that seen on the plant

Conclusions so far

The oil is so incompressible the time constants are pretty insignificant ( so why spend
any time modelling each individual pipe segment in detail )
The loop dynamics are dominated by seconds of (apparent) dead time these are an
accumulation of effects, some known but some unknown ( so we cant model them
accurately anyway ). Some typical values

DCS scan period

Smart positioner
Smart Transmitter
Valve

dead time 0.25 seconds

dead time 0.01 seconds
[1]
dead time 0.05 s lag 0.5 s
[2]
dead band 2%
Usually ramp rate limited by ability to move air
into the actuator
dead time order of 1 second
[3]

The ratio of dead time to time constant is huge ( 20 ? )

Its probably all dominated by the valve anyway so difficult to do much about
1] typical figures based on smart positioner data sheets
[2] typical figures based on Rosemount smart pressure cell dataseheets
[3] Control valve performance ( fall 2007 Valve Magazine )
[

Simulation
Added a ramp rate limit to the simulation and a couple of
seconds of dead time
Tuning values from the plant now limiting values for
simulation
Some comments in the original simulation report
Transients are not accurately simulated but the behaviour
of the system can be qualitatively predicted
It is not proposed to give controller settings here past
results would suggest they do not pass well from model to
plant with a great deal of success

Quick simulation

100

% Reduction in peak by controller

90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0

dead time / time constant

To avoid dropping below the trip setting we would need to reduce

Dead time/time constant to about 1 i.e. dead time about 1/10 sec

Quick simulation

100
90

timebelow trip setting

( % of ratio = 20 )

80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0

10

12

14

16

18

20

dead time / time constant

Simulation is below the trip setting for 70 seconds. To reduce this to the trip
delay period of 10secs requires us to reduce our dead time/time constant to
About 2 .

Conclusions Seal oil system

We need to reduce the dead time / time constant ratio to the
order of about 2.

With the given oil system this implies about 200ms .

Moving the control into a fast standalone controller has
been suggested. Probably pointless as The valve is the
dominant dynamic element

Taking the positioner off the valve, may help but again not
significant enough to fix the problem
Pipe changes , valve characteristic changes , adjusting
positioner characteristic limited value
Only solution is to soften the system characteristic and install
some hydro pneumatic accumulators

Conclusions Dynamic modelling

Are you representing the effects that are significant in the model
Are you simplifying insignificant effects
First simulation modelled every pipe as a separate capacity

I have since seen a hydraulic simulation on a brine system modelling

hydraulic transients of fractions of a second on a system with lags of
several seconds )

Do you have enough plant data to validate your model

Are you sure, sample time , compression etc.
First simulation was totally wrong in terms of PID tuning parameters so the
system performance was totally wrong.
Does your model give any insight into the operation of the system
Do you understand the results and do they have physical meaning