Fault detection in reciprocating compressor valves for steady-state load conditions

Abstract

This paper presents a novel approach to diagnosing faults in reciprocating compressor valves. Based on easily available vibration data, a transformation to a high-dimensional vector space is performed. By defining a metric in this vector space, the distance between the actual compressor state and a reference compressor state is calculated. Excessive distances indicate a faulty compressor. Since large distances may be due not only to faulty valves but also to non-steady-state load conditions, this method is applied only to the steady-state operating mode.