Reciprocating Compressor

[WARose]

I got some (very prelim) info on a piece of equipment I am doing a foundation for on down the line. One thing that got my attention was: it's about 3000 rpm and they say it's a very heavy reciprocating air compressor. (Several hundred tons in fact in shipped weight.) I am use to those machines being much lower in rpm at that weight. Has anyone seen that rpm with that weight?

 

[quark]

3000 rpm for a recip is very high. Is this compressor speed or motor speed? Recip pulleys are much bigger in size (some call them as flywheels to reduce inertia), so compressor speed can be much lower than motor speed.

 

[WARose]

Is this compressor speed or motor speed?

I'm not 100% sure. (It's in the FEL phase of the project.) I was just told that this compressor skid will be generating approx. 10 kips of unbalanced force and it was a compressor base. That seemed a little high for a unbalanced force from a motor.....so I asked about the compressor.

 

[Strong]

Perhaps it is 300 rpm. You may want to verify compressor speed and direction of unbalanced force. There is obviously a big difference between vertical and horizontal force acting on a foundation!

Walt

 

[WARose]

No it's 3000 rpm. Wonder if it actually is the motor. (Maybe the motor(s) is recip too?)

 

[MintJulep]

Will this be installed somewhere with a 50 Hz power system?

 

[WARose]

Will this be installed somewhere with a 50 Hz power system?

Possibly. I'm not sure. (My contact guy for this won't be back from vacation/holiday until the 13th. So that's why I am asking here rather than him. Much thanks.)

 

[itsmoked]

The typical cheap modern compressors run at motor speed being just a cam pushing on a diaphragm. However, those are never very large compressors.

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[rotw]

To my modest experience, 3000rpm is unusually high. Its 2 poles in 50 Hz grid supposedly, among the higher you can do.
I heard of a rare recip driven by a gas turbine, installed in Germany. The gearbox was huge..

 

[RossABQ]

Will this have an isolated pad, or an inertia base? If it doesn't it will shake the building.

 

[farrellnoid]

I think it you need to gather more information.

A relevant place to look at is probably API 11P or API 618 (it depends on the prime mover).