A chemical company operating a centrifugal compressor noticed that the equipment had elevated bearing temperatures. Reviewing the bearing temperature sawtooth clearly showed a steadily increasing pattern of temperatures, which is a classic symptom of high temperature deposits on bearings. After some investigation, the company identified excess leakage of NOx into the oil. They corrected the source of the leak, but the high temperatures persisted, so they asked the Mobil™ Engineering team to recommend a solution.
After analyzing the data, the Mobil Engineering team recommended a 30% bleed and feed followed by adding a Solvancer®-based oil soluble cleaning technology to the in-service oil to help dissolve the deposits and reduce temperatures to acceptable levels until the next planned outage. They also recommended the use of Mobil™ Lubrication Analysis to monitor the progress of varnish mitigation and proactively detect NOx carry-over.
By using the Solvancer-based technology developed by Fluitec®, the Mobil Engineering team was able to help identify an immediate solution to effectively mitigate alarms and address bearing temperature escalation while keeping the system operational and maximizing production. In addition, they were able to help the company extend the equipment’s service life, affording them maintenance flexibility and saving more than $300,000* in unplanned outage and maintenance costs.
By helping to extend equipment life and prevent the shutdown of the centrifuge compressor, the Mobil Engineering team helped the chemical company maximize productivity and deliver significant cost savings.
