Pulsation suppression in a reciprocating compressor piping system using a two-tank element

Abstract

Gas pulsations excited by reciprocating compressors could introduce severe vibrations and noise in piping systems. When pulsating gas flows through the reducers, the changes in flow characteristics, such as velocity and damping coefficient, will affect the pressure pulsations. To circumvent these constraints, a two-tank element is introduced to control the gas pulsation that is still strong in the piping system with a surge tank. Installing another surge tank to form a two-tank element is more flexible and costs lower than replacing the original surge tank with a larger one. In this work, a theoretical model based on the wave theory was proposed to study the transferring mechanism of gas pulsations in the pipeline with the two-tank element. By considering the damping coefficient and the Mach number, the distributions of the pressure pulsations were predicted by the theoretical model and agreed with the three-dimensional fluid dynamics transient analysis. Three experiments were conducted to prove that the suppression capability of the two-tank element is as good as that of a single-tank element (surge tank) with the same surge volume. The volume optimization of the twotank element is implemented by selecting the best allocations of the two tanks' volumes to achieve larger reductions of pressure pulsations. Assuming that the total surge volume is constant, we found that the smaller the volume of the front tank (near the cylinder) is, the lower the pulsation levels are. The optimized result proves that in some conditions the two-tank element could control pulsations better than the single-tank element with the same surge volume.

Attenuation of pulsations in the reciprocating compressor piping system with an elbow-shaped surge tank

“…To further study the suppression ability, we define the relative suppression ratio (equation (12)) of the ESSTE and TTE comparing with the ST. As shown in Figure 10, the experimental values of Sr ESSTE at points 1 and 12 are roughly 36 and 64%, respectively. Especially, the ESSTE could control the pressure pulsations in the upstream piping system to a much lower level than the TTE.…”

“…Avoiding the high-cost and time-consuming manual fabrication, Ma et al 12 recommended installing a ST near the existing one to form a two-tank element (TTE), which costs lower than replacing the existing ST with a larger one or modifying the existing ST to the aforementioned suppressors. Besides, the ST is a kind of expansion chamber which also avoids high pressure loss.…”

Analysis of Cylindrical Damper Effects on Turbine Meters Accuracy in a Pulsating CNG Suction Line: An Optimal Design through CFD Simulations

“…e compressors commonly used in CNG stations are positive displacement and reciprocating models. In positive displacement compressors, pulsations may be created in charging and discharging lines due to the gates opening and closing movements [3,4]. Clearly, these pulsations affect the accuracy of the measurement.…”

Vibration Diagnosis and Treatment for a Scrubber System Connected to a Reciprocating Compressor

“…Vibration can be controlled by increasing pipe size, increasing buffer tank, shorting pipeline length, adding support, installing orifice, and so on [10][11][12][13]. Recent vibration reduction studies mainly focus on natural frequency adjustment and pressure pulsation control [14][15][16].…”