Turbomachinery Control System Design Objectives
The primary design objective for any turbomachinery control system should be to maintain or maximize machine and associated process reliability. With this assurance firmly in place, attention can then be turned to maximizing machine and process efficiency.
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Machine and Process Reliability
A well-designed turbomachinery control system should take into account typical, as well as, rare types of process disturbances. Analysis should be made of the size and direction of these disturbances and how they will be “felt” by the turbomachinery train in both a static and dynamic sense. Process disturbances are mostly associated with so called “pressure waves” from the suction or discharge network of the compressor.
However, disturbances in the process stream or gas composition can be just at dramatic in their effect on compressor control as changes in pressure/flow rates.
Many process control professionals begin with the notion that process reliability is tantamount to machine reliability goals such as compressor antisurge control, load limiting, high and low pressure limiting, overspeed prevention, etc. This notion is quickly lost however when, for example, a compressor surge incident causes a machine to trip, bringing down the associated process. In many processes, a surge incident can also create enough process oscillation to initiate a process trip prior to high temperatures and/ or train vibration initiating a machine trip. It should be readily apparent that turbomachinery almost always operates as the “heart” of the process and that it then becomes impossible to separate machine and process reliability.
