Field and Engineering Services for Machinery and Piping Systems

For more than 40 years, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has helped industry develop and operate reliable and safe plant machinery. SwRI has a proven reputation as a leader in fluid mechanical systems design and operation. The Institute provides on-site and remote services that are:

• Client-focused
• Problem-responsive
• Solution-oriented
• Cost-effective

Combining consultations, extensive field studies, and comprehensive laboratory, analytical, and computer-modeling capabilities, SwRI engineers rapidly and economically:

• Characterize the problem
• Diagnose the cause
• Predict the consequences
• Assess alternate designs
• Recommend solutions

The Institute has solved thousands of machinery- and dynamics-related problems for the following industries:

• Gas transmission
• Gas distribution
• Oil and gas production
• Oil refining
• Gas processing
• Chemical processing
• Fertilizer production
• Paper manufacturing
• Marine and offshore
• Power generation

Vibration Control

Data Acquisition and Analysis

Excessive machinery and piping vibrations reduce machinery service life and production. SwRI engineers measure, analyze, and control machinery and piping vibration, using well-developed techniques and instrumentation to provide:

• Pressure pulsation assessments
• Vibration assessments
• Dynamic strain severity measurements
• Near-field noise levels
• Impact and shaker testing
• Laser shaft alignment evaluation
• Mechanical response characteristics
• Modal and failure analyses

Flow-induced Noise and Vibration Analyses

SwRI measures and evaluates flow-induced vibration problems rapidly and effectively. The Institute has solved these vibration problems on a wide range of systems including:

• High-energy piping
• Safety, check, and let-down valves
• Heat exchangers
• Process towers
• Flare lines
• Surge control piping
• Machinery internals
• Furnaces
• Offshore platforms and structures
• Compressor casings

Institute engineers use a frictional strain gauge to accurately locate high dynamic strain. This screening tool minimizes the time needed to resolve unscheduled maintenance shutdowns.

Strain and Fatigue Testing and Analysis

Using their extensive expertise in identifying potential failure locations and installing strain gauges for fatigue diagnosis, Institute engineers have developed a set of industry-recognized strain and vibration criteria. SwRI staff members routinely install strain gauges on hot piping while the system is still on-line. Strain testing has been used for:

• Thermal and dynamic stress measurement
• Mechanical response testing and modal analysis of turbine blades and impellers
• Safety and reliability screening of machinery and piping
• Dynamic stress screening using portable strain gauges
• Failure analysis

Testing and Modeling

Rotordynamic Analysis

SwRI has conducted analyses of rotating equipment and machinery for more than 35 years. The Institute offers the following services to ensure optimum rotordynamic performance:

• Independent design audits
• Undamped lateral critical speed determination
• Damped unbalanced response prediction
• Bearing stiffness and damping calculation
• Stability (logarithmic decrement) calculation
• Steady-state torsional critical speed calculation
• Transient torsional calculation
• Coupling selection
• Cumulative fatigue prediction
• Forced response analysis
• Custom model preparation

This map depicts undamped critical speeds as a function of support stiffness. Calculated bearing performance parameters are often superimposed on the map to help avoid coincidence of lateral critical speeds and excitation energy.

Dynamic Structure Analysis

Using integrated field and modeling techniques, SwRI engineers assist in cost-effective designs of machinery components and foundations. The Institute offers expertise in:

• On-site shaker testing (10,000-pound capability)
• Foundation and structural response
• Structural design audits
• Machinery tie-down assessment
• Foundation crack growth evaluation
• Vibrational modal analysis
• Soil dynamics analysis
• Skid and structural deflection testing

An SwRI field engineer monitors the condition of rotating machinery using an SwRI-developed data acquisition system.

Diagnostics and Balancing

Excessive vibration and unstable balance can lead to early component failure, reduced capacity, and equipment inefficiency. In addition to sophisticated data acquisition, test, and diagnostic equipment that detects and resolves vibration and balance problems, SwRI has developed software and expert systems to provide state-of-the-art monitoring and diagnostic capabilities, such as:

• Sub- and super-synchronous vibration analysis
• Oil whip and oil whirl instabilities detection
• Impeller and diffuser stall diagnosis
• Torsional vibration analysis
• Surge detection
• In-place, normal speed, and multiplane, multispeed, and multishaft balancing
• Rotor and resonance balancing
• Remote monitoring acquisition and data transmittal instrumentation
• Weight correction calculation

Flow Measurement Diagnostics

SwRI maintains world-class natural gas flow measurement research and calibration facilities. Institute staff members solve metering problems by providing assistance in the following areas:

• Square root error measurement
• Gauge line pulsation and error quantification
• Pulsation effect determination
• Upstream piping-induced flow distortion resolution
• Meter calibration and proving techniques
• Transmitter processing evaluation
• Flow measurement station design and audits
• Entrained liquid detection and evaluation
• Lost and unaccounted for flow determination and resolutions

The Institute operates the Gas Technology Institute's Metering Research Facility, located at SwRI. This facility enables engineers to measure the performance of new and existing gas meters over a range of typical and extreme conditions.

Performance Optimization

SwRI is an industry leader in developing and implementing performance and diagnostic analyses of reciprocating compressors, pumps, and engines. Using the Institute's computer-based multichannel cylinder performance acquisition and analysis software, SwRI engineers:

• Analyze horsepower and capacity versus output
• Detect and identify mechanical and system faults
• Identify valve dynamic faults
• Estimate valve leak severity
• Generate performance maps and operating charts
• Measure and calculate energy balance

Experienced in centrifugal compressor startup diagnostics and troubleshooting, Institute staff members routinely:

• Assess compressor performance
• Detect and prevent surges
• Diagnose and analyze pulsation, noise, and vibration

SwRI engineers field test a reciprocating compressor using an SwRI-developed PC-based data acquisition system to analyze horsepower and capacity and to identify and correct system performance problems.

Additional Services

The Institute, with 12 technical divisions cooperating in multidisciplinary approaches to solving problems, carries out research, development, engineering, and testing in areas ranging from applied physics to training systems and simulators. Additional services of interest to the machinery and piping industry include:

Failure Analysis

• Systematic component failure analysis
• Material assessment
• Corrosion damage evaluation and prediction

Fracture Analysis

• High-temperature life prediction and failure analysis
• Fatigue life analysis
• Environmentally assisted cracking
• Probabilistic life assessment

Decision Assistance

• Maintenance optimization
• Decision maintenance analysis

Dynamic Monitoring

• Turbomachinery vibration control
• Combustion turbine balance
• Turbine alignment, distortion, and thermal gradient monitoring

Nondestructive Evaluation

• Automated ultrasonic flaw detection and sizing
• Intergranular stress corrosion cracking detection
• Dye penetrant and wet fluorescent magnetic particle testing
• Magnetostrictive sensor corrosion pit detection

Training and Instruction

• Training systems and simulators
• Measurement workshop and short courses

This brochure was published in May 1998. For more information about field and engineering services for machinery and piping systems, contact Justin Hollingsworth, Mechanical Engineering Division, Southwest Research Institute, P.O. Drawer 25810, San Antonio, Texas 78228-0510, Phone (210) 522-2537, Fax (210) 522-4506.

Mechanical Engineering Division Brochures
SwRI Brochures SwRI Publications SwRI Home