Matthew Blieske

Mechanical Engineering Division,

Southwest Research Institute,
P.O. Drawer 28510,
San Antonio, TX 78228-0510
e-mail: matthew.blieske@swri.org

Rainer Kurz
Solar Turbines Incorporated,
9330 Sky Park Court,
San Diego, CA 92123
e-mail: kurz_rainer_x@solarturbines.com

Augusto Garcia-Hernandez
e-mail: augusto.garciahernandez@swri.org

Klaus Brun
e-mail: kbrun@swri.org
Mechanical Engineering Division,
Southwest Research Institute,
P.O. Drawer 28510,
San Antonio, TX 78228-0510

Centrifugal Compressors During

Fast Transients
Transient studies for compressor systems allow the prediction of the compressor system
behavior during fast transients such as they occur during emergency shutdowns. For the
system simulations, the compressor behavior is assumed to be quasi-steady-state. This
means in particular that the steady-state compressor flow-head-efficiency-speed map remains valid. During well instrumented emergency shutdown tests conducted on a centrifugal compressor system under realistic operating conditions, data showing the headflow-speed relationship of the rapidly decelerating compressor were taken. These data
are compared with steady-state head-flow relationships taken at a number of speeds. This
allows the determination of the relative deviation between the transient and steady-state
head-flow-relationships and thus answers the question of the validity of steady-state
assumptions during rapid transients. The impact of the fast transients on efficiency and
consumed power, which can be derived from the speed decay of the system, as well as the
impact of nonstationary heat transfer are also evaluated and reported.
DOI: 10.1115/1.4002681

Introduction

The possible operating points of a centrifugal gas compressor

are limited by maximum and minimum operating speeds, maximum available power, choke flow, and stability surge limit Fig.
1. Surge, which is the flow reversal within the compressor, accompanied by high fluctuating load on the compressor bearings,
has to be avoided to protect the compressor. The usual method for
surge avoidance antisurge-control consists of a recycle loop
that can be activated by a fast acting valve antisurge valve
when the control system detects that the compressor approaches
its surge limit. The process changes are usually slow, and steadystate assumptions are proven to be valid.
Emergency shutdowns ESD, on the other hand, where the
driver power is cut off instantly, and the compressor spins under
its own inertia generate much faster transients the compressor
may lose 30% of its speed in the first second that also require
taking the behavior of the piping system into account.
While the behavior of the piping system can be predicted quite
accurately, the question about the rate of deceleration for the compressor remains. It is possible to calculate the power consumption
for a number of potential steady-state operating points. The operating points are imposed by the pressure in the discharge volume,
which dictates the head of the compressor. For a given speed, this
determines the flow that the compressor feeds into the discharge.
The two surge lines in Fig. 1 require some explanation that is
rooted in different conventions of setting the surge line of a compressor: The theoretical surge line at the right is based on the
first horizontal tangent of the head-flow characteristic. It was determined in previous tests of an identical impeller by the compressor manufacturer and is the setting that is used for production
surge-control systems. At flows lower than indicated by this surge
line, rotating stall can occur. Since the compressor used for this
study is designed for much higher pressures than encountered during this test, the control system is normally based on this surge
Contributed by the International Gas Turbine Institute IGTI of ASME for publication in the JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING FOR GAS TURBINES AND POWER. Manuscript
received May 20, 2010; final manuscript received May 22, 2010; published online
March 24, 2011. Editor: Dilip R. Ballal.

line. The surge line to the left is the stability limit for the current
installation based on tests. Only at flows lower than the flow established by this surge line, a surge event i.e., reversal of flow
was encountered. For the tested installation, due to the relatively
low pressure, aerodynamic forces on the rotor, for example, due to
rotating stall events, would be of no consequence to the life of the
machine 1. A detailed description of the test setup used to acquire the transient data is found in Refs. 1,2.

Theoretical Considerations

The behavior of the compressor during ESD is governed by two

effects: The inertia of the system consisting of the compressor,
coupling, and power turbine and gearbox, where applicable is
counteracted by the torque T transferred into the fluid by the
compressor mechanical losses are neglected. The balance of
forces thus yields
T = 2 J

dN
dt

Knowing the inertia J of the system and measuring the speed

variation with time during rundown yields the torque and thus the
power transferred to the gas
P = T N 2 = 22 J N

dN
dt

If the rundown would follow through similar operating points,

then P N3, which would lead to a rundown behavior of
Nt =

dN
kN2

=
dt J22

1
1
k
t
J22 Nt=0
dN
k
2 =
N
J22

dt + c Nt

Regarding the proportionality factor k for power and speed,

this factor is fairly constant, no matter where on the operating map
the rundown event starts. Thus, the rate of deceleration, which is

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Fig. 1 Steady-state compressor map test and prediction

approximately determined by the inertia and the proportionality

factor, is fairly independent of the operating point of the compressor when the shutdown occurred, i.e., the time constant dN / dtt
= 0 for the rundown event is proportional to k/J. However, the
higher the surge margin is at the moment of the trip, the more
head increase can be achieved by the compressor at constant
speed.
A more precise representation of the compressor behavior is
possible if the compressor map is known either from predictions
or test data. This is the case for the present study Fig. 1. Then,
the isentropic head, which is dictated by the pressure upstream
and downstream of the compressor and the momentary speed of
the compressor, define the isentropic efficiency and the flow
through the machine. In other words, the gas power for the machine can be determined for any instant from the map data. Additionally, the mechanical losses have to be calculated. Thus, for a
known gas composition
P = 11,T1 Q1Hs,N

Hs
sHs,N

The difficulty lies in the fact that compressor maps are generated with the fundamental assumption that the machine operates
under steady-state conditions 3,4.
Obviously, the conditions during the fast transients are not
steady-state. The data gathered in the tests conducted by Moore et
al. 1,2 allow one to test the hypothesis that steady-state data are
suitable for use in simulations of fast transients.
These are the following systematic issues that still need to be
overcome.

The temperature data especially on the discharge side will

show thermal lag.
The mechanical losses need to be considered.

Therefore, the following approaches are made.

The isentropic head is evaluated first since it is not a function of the lagging discharge temperature and can be calculated directly from the suction temperature and suction and
discharge pressure measured head. Using the compressor map, it can be determined whether this head coincides

072401-2 / Vol. 133, JULY 2011

with the head determined from the compressor map for the
measured flow and speed calculated head.
The compressor absorbed power that is the sum of gas
power and mechanical power loss can be determined from
the measured rate of speed change and the known system
inertia Eq. 8. If a simple relationship between mechanical losses and speed can be postulated, the gas power is then
known and allows the calculation of the isentropic head and
isentropic efficiency measured head and efficiency. This,
in turn, can again be compared with values derived from the
compressor map for the given flow and speed calculated
head and efficiency.

The results will show a deviation between measured and calculated values and thus give an indication of the error generated by
the use of steady-state maps for transient compressor operation.
One of the possible causes for the deviation will undoubtedly
be due to the heat transfer between the compressor and the gas.
This is a known cause for errors in performance tests, where unsteady operating conditions will lead to erroneous results 5, or
for gas turbine transient operating conditions 4,68.
High speed transient data were previously obtained for a compressor during emergency shutdown and used to validate commercial transient surge prediction tools 2. This study will use these
data to evaluate the common practice of utilizing steady-state
compressor map data for transient performance predictions. This
is especially important for determining the necessary surge margin
during an emergency shutdown and for designing antisurge systems.

Method

In order to compare the transient measured compressor performance against the steady-state map obtained from the manufacturer, the compressor map was broken down into a series of curve
fits. Curve fit coefficients were obtained from each speed line with
flow as the input variable and head as the output. A final fit function was made between all the speed line fit coefficients with
compressor speed and flow as the input variables. This allowed a
steady-state head value to be obtained from the map for a given
compressor speed and flow. Head and flow were then plotted usTransactions of the ASME

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Table 1 Steady-state conditions for emergency shutdown analyzed

P1
bar

T1
C

P2
bar

T2
C

Q
m3 / s

N
rpm

12.86

22.39

14.43

34.22

0.759

19,799

ing both the measured data, and the map predicted head versus
measured flow. This comparison will show if using a steady-state
map is valid for transient calculations especially calculations to
simulate an emergency shutdown of a compressor station.
The steady-state conditions before shutdown for the case analyzed are summarized here Table 1.
Of particular importance in ensuring accurate and meaningful
results from this study was the need to avoid using discharge
temperature data in the calculations. Figure 2 shows compressor
inlet and discharge temperatures during the shutdown event initiated at about 8.6 s with recycle valve position indicated. The
compressor had spun down from 19,800 rpm at t = 8.6 s to 6150
rpm at t = 15 s yet the temperatures had not changed as would be
expected especially for the discharge with such a drop in speed
and pressure ratio. This would suggest that the thermal mass of
the thermowells and thermocouples used in the experiment was
too large to capture meaningful transient data. Isentropic efficiency or gas power could not be calculated using conventional
isentropic calculations due to the need for highly accurate temperature rise data. Also, due to the low pressure ratio used during
the test 1.12, temperature rise is small, resulting in a high expected degree of error in the temperature measurements from thermocouples.
Power input to the gas was calculated using the change in speed
of the compressor train. Equation 5 shows how the decay of the
gas absorbed power with speed is somewhat counteracted by the
presence of residual power in the driving gas turbine, while the
speed decay is accelerated by losses in the bearings.
Pgas Pres + Pmech = JN

dN
dt

In order to calculate power input to the gas, residual power and

mechanical losses needed to be estimated. As no expression for
residual power could be derived without shutdown data from the
driving gas turbine, analysis was started at a period after initial
shutdown when residual power was zero. This is indicated by a
sharp change in slope on the speed and rate change in speed
graphs shown in Fig. 3.
A decay function was assumed for mechanical losses of the
form
Pmech = Pomo

N
No

where Po is the absorbed power of the drive train according to the

right hand side of Eq. 5 at the time of shutdown, mo is the
mechanical loss coefficient at the time of shutdown, N is the instantaneous speed, and No is the speed at shutdown. Equations 5
and 6 were combined and integrated with respect to time to
achieve a relationship between inertia, mechanical loss, and speed
N t =

BeCBt
,
1 AeCBt

A=

Po
,
N 3J

B=

Pomo
,
N 2J

C = ln

N
B + AN

Equation 7 was then used to calibrate mechanical loss estimates against measured speed decay. mo was altered until speed
decay calculated using Eq. 7 matched the measured speed decay,
as shown in Fig. 4. Note how the residual gas power decreases the
speed decay slope for the first 0.4 s. Equation 7 is not valid for
this region, therefore the analysis started at t = 9.1 s.

Fig. 2 Suction and discharge temperature variation through ESD with recycle valve position
indicated

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Fig. 3 Speed decay and rate change of speed decay after shutdown showing influence of residual driver power

With mechanical loss estimated, power delivered to the gas was

calculated using a modified version of Eq. 5
Pgas = JN

dN
Pmech
dt

Map predicted power input was calculated using head, flow,

and isentropic efficiency obtained from the map. The gas power
calculated in Eq. 8 was then compared with the map predicted
result.
Power input to the gas could not be calculated for the period,
where residual gas turbine driver power was not zero. In order to
estimate this power, an exponential decay function was fitted to
the portion of the shaft power curve, where residual power was
zero, as shown in Fig. 5. The difference between the measured
shaft power and the extrapolated power is the residual gas power.
With actual input power to the shaft now known even during the
period when residual driver power was nonzero, comparison between measured and map predicted performance was possible
right from t = 8.6 s. In order to calculate gas power input, me-

chanical loss Eq. 6 must be subtracted from the curve fitted

shaft power. By following this two step approach, measured gas
input power during a rapid transient was calculated. The measured
gas input power corrected for residual driver power and mechanical loss can be found in Fig. 10.
In order to explain the discrepancy between the two results, it
was hypothesized that the inclusion of heat transfer from compressor gas path components in measured data would overpredict
gas power consumption during shutdown. In order to translate the
measured diabatic heat transfer included power to an isentropic
power, a simplified expression for heat transfer as a function of
flow parameters was required. Casey and Fesich 9 developed a
nondimensional relationship to estimate heat loss
q

U2
tM t3

One purpose of this study is to initiate a high-level exploration

on the validity of heat transfer correlations as a method to trans-

Fig. 4 Measured versus calculated speed decay used to estimate mechanical losses

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Fig. 5 Extrapolation of measured shaft power into the region where residual driver power was not zero, allowing calculation of residual driver
power

late map predicted power to actual transient power, where heat

transfer is not negligible. The parameter is an empirically determined constant for a given geometry and narrow range of inlet
temperature. Once this value is determined, it can be used to predict heat loss at other conditions. Use of a simple equation, such
as Eq. 9, to predict heat loss will undoubtedly introduce some
error as heat transfer in internal compressor flow paths is a complicated problem. More accurate predictions can be achieved using CFD; however, Caseys equation is easily incorporated into
transient simulation codes; whereas more involved techniques,
such as the lumped capacitance method and computational methods, require detailed information about geometry, local Reynolds
numbers, and local velocities. Figure 10 reports the heat loss calculated from this correlation for the transient case in this study.

Results

Figure 6 graphically shows the difference between the steadystate map prediction and the measured path taken during emergency shutdown. Marked on the measured line are speed points

corresponding to the speed lines on the steady-state maps. If no

error between steady-state and transient performance existed,
these markings should be coincident with their respective speed
lines on the steady-state map; as can be seen from the figure, they
are not. However, the relative error is rather small between steadystate and transient head prediction shown in Fig. 7, which would
suggest that using steady-state performance maps is a valid approximation for transient performance as far as the isentropic
head-flow-speed relationship is concerned.
During the period, where surge is most likely demonstrated by
repeat testing at various suction pressures and surge margins 1,
head predictions did not differ by more than 5%. As the pressure
ratio, speed, and corresponding danger of a surge event decreased,
error increased. Accuracy in this region of the map lower right
portion in Fig. 6 may not be as important for someone designing
an antisurge system as the danger of a surge event occurring with
a compressor operating in this region during a transient is very
small. Performance characteristics illustrated in the compressor
map were digitized in the form of a series of curve fits, as de-

Fig. 6 Predicted and measured flow versus head during ESD

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Fig. 7 Relative error in head between map prediction and measured data during shutdown

scribed in the method. These curve fits were designed to provide

highest accuracy in the top half of the compressor map, which
corresponds to the first second of shutdown. An error introduced
by curve fitting increases at the fringe of the specified domain and
is a partial contributor to the error shown in Fig. 7. The important
finding is, however, that during the critical phase of rundown, the
steady-state head-flow relationship provides acceptable results.

It does not appear that a relationship between rate change of

speed a measure of how significant the transient condition is and
relative error in map predicted and measured power a measure of
transient induced error on performance prediction exists based on
Fig. 8. This suggests that the error between steady-state and transient performance is not primarily related to inertia. As was mentioned previously, it is believed that this error is a function of heat
transfer from hot gas path components to the gas. This is further
supported by the fact that Fig. 8 does not show any distinct dependency on the rate of deceleration but a behavior that is clearly
time dependent, i.e., a large error exists particularly during the
initial phase of the shutdown.
While it has been shown that steady-state head-flow-speed relationships hold up well during fast transients, the same does not
apply to power. Figure 9 shows the power input to the gas during
shutdown. At the time of shutdown, both predicted and measured
power match, which is expected as the transient case starts from a
steady-state condition. As the shutdown progresses, the measured
power does not decay quite as fast as steady-state performance
predicts. Note how the gap begins to narrow once again as the
shutdown continues to progress around the 10.5 s mark. This
corresponds to an equalization of inlet and discharge gas temperatures and compressor metal temperature.
Since the compressor has a large thermal mass compared with

Fig. 8 Illustration of no relationship between rate of deceleration and error

between map predicted and measured power

Fig. 9 Comparison of map predicted power and measured power. Correction for heat transfer during shutdown is included.

072401-6 / Vol. 133, JULY 2011

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Fig. 10 Thermal and mechanical losses expressed in power and relative to the shaft power delivered

the power absorbed during these tests, heat transfer effects are
significant despite the relatively small temperature rise over the
compressor. For applications with significant pressure ratios, this
effect will also be more pronounced and cannot be ignored. Figure
10 shows how the heat loss is fairly small at steady-state about
3% but increases as a percentage of the shaft power as flow speed
decreases.
Although the heat transfer coefficient will decrease with a
lower flow velocity, residence time in the compressor is treated as
dominant in Eq. 9. This assumption seems to be justified as the
measured gas power collapses onto the predicted gas power line
using this correlation shown in Fig. 9. As stated above, the measured gas power line reflects diabatic conditions, having taken
heat transfer into account via actual speed and pressure measurements. The predicted line assumes an adiabatic condition. Collapsing the two lines requires removal of the heat input to the gas
during rapid transient, which is accomplished by estimating the
heat transfer using Eq. 9. Note that the error between the corrected measured and predicted power during the 0.5 s after shutdown is most likely due to the fact that the nondimensional heat
transfer relationships used do not take into account energy generation such as the residual gas turbine power. The use of an
empirical constant is not valid for such a case as it can be
calibrated with or without generation, not both. After the compressor shifts from being driven by the residual gas turbine power to
driving, the correction performs well. In order to prove the viability of the relationships used, other shutdown cases must be analyzed using the same value for . If good agreement is achieved at
different suction pressures and surge margins, it can be said that
the approach to heat transfer taken in this study is valid for use as
a diabatic correction during fast transients.

Conclusion

The data presented in this study support the general practice to

use steady-state speed, head, and flow data for the transient behavior of centrifugal compressors during emergency shutdowns.
The data identify heat transfer from the compressor body which
has a significant heat storage capacity due to its large amount of
material into the gas during transient events as the major source
of deviations. This has a measurable impact on the apparent compressor efficiency and the absorbed power. Increased accuracy for
transient simulation can thus be gained by taking this heat transfer
into account.
Journal of Engineering for Gas Turbines and Power

Shutdown simulations will use the compressor absorbed power

calculated from a steady-state performance map. Analyzing the
test data and comparing the power calculated from the steadystate map with the actually absorbed power using Eq. 8, we
identified a significant difference. Therefore, using the power calculated from the map in a shutdown simulation will introduce
errors in the assumed rate of speed change.

Nomenclature
T
J
N
k

Q
H

mo
T
Pgas
Pres
Pmech
Po
No
U
t
Mt

torque
polar moment of inertia
shaft speed
power-speed proportionality factor
density
flow
head
mechanical loss coefficient at reference
temperature
gas power
residual gas turbine driver power
mechanical power loss
inertial power at reference
shaft speed at reference
impeller tip speed
impeller tip flow coefficient
impeller tip Mach number
heat transfer coefficient
heat transfer

References
1 Moore, J. J., Kurz, R., Garcia-Hernandez, A., and Brun, K., 2009, Experimental Evaluation of a Compressor Station During Emergency Shutdowns,
ASME Paper No. GT2009-59064.
2 Moore, J. J., Garcia-Hernandez, A., Blieske, M., Kurz, R., and Brun, K., 2009,
Transient Surge Measurements of a Centrifugal Compressor During Emergency Shutdowns, Proceedings of the 38th Turbomachinery Symposium,
Houston, TX.
3 Morini, M., Pinelli, M., and Venturini, M., 2009, Analysis of Biogas Compression System Dynamics, Appl. Energy, 86, pp. 24662475.
4 Morini, M., Pinelli, M., and Venturini, M., 2007, Development of a OneDimensional Modular Dynamic Model for the Simulation of Surge in Compression Systems, ASME J. Turbomach., 129, pp. 437447.
5 Kurz, R., and Brun, K., 2005, Site Performance Evaluation for Gas Turbine
and Electric Motor Driven Compressors, Proceedings of the 34th Turbomachinery Symposium, Houston, TX.

JULY 2011, Vol. 133 / 072401-7

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6 Berns, W., and Fottner, L., 1991, Experimental Analysis of the Dynamic
Performance of Turbojet Engines, ISABE Paper No. 91-7027.
7 Schmidt, K. J., 1991, The Effects of the Characteristics of Gas Turbine Components During Transition, ISABE Paper No. 91-7009.
8 Morini, M., Cataldi, G., Pinelli, M., and Venturini, M., 2007, A Model for the

072401-8 / Vol. 133, JULY 2011

Simulation of Large-Size Single-Shaft Gas Turbine Start-Up Based on Operating Data Fitting, Proceedings of the ASME Turbo Expo 2007.
9 Casey, M. V., and Fesich, T. M., 2009, On the Efficiency of Compressors
With Diabatic Flows, ASME Paper No. GT2009-59015.

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