It may be worth giving Dresser-Rand Painted Post, NY tech services a call. They still maintain many records and information on the Clark Brothers engine lineup. If you have serial numbers available, they should be able to help you out. The information I have access to is limited.. Feel free...
Too much ratio for one stage in a recip. You'll run into discharge temperature issues and/or discharge volumetric efficiency problems. Needs two stages.
I've always used the two terms interchangeably and sweet natural gas is typically an acceptable buffer/purging gas. Why do you want to use two different gasses?
This is probably the best paper for understanding rod load and the different interpretations of that phrase that various compressor OEMS exercise.
Link
Ariel calculates internal gas load in both tension and compression, which is a part of the API-618 defined MACCRL rod load. Their total rod...
Speaking with regard to recip packages, there is some economy of scale with regard to $$/BHP. I work for a compressor OEM and I have two vary vague, general "rules of thumb" $750/BHP (Higher 850-$1000/HP for smaller applications and slightly lower for larger HP applicaton) and 2) 4-5x...
I know I am late to this party but what speed range are you looking to operate at? HydroCOMs or any type of stepless capacity control device installed on suction valves are very low on my list of capacity control methods I would installed on high speed compressors (900 RPM or above).
Assuming you have spare packings rings on site, it should not take more than a couple hours to replace a cylinder packing. I've replaced all the rings on our manufacturing floor in 30 minutes or so.
Per my interaction with packing OEMs as a compressor engineer, a cylinder packing in good...
ABB (Poland) and PEB (Netherlands) are experienced compressors packagers in Europe. Enerflex and Exterran are always good bets. Knowing the size of the compressor you are interested in always helps.