Reduced leakage and major cost savings thanks to sealing system upgrade

Our customer Air Products, a global air separation company, has two dry-running hydrogen compressors at their South African plant Vanderbijlpark in operation.

They experienced very high maintenance expenses, replacing wear parts every month, high leakages and power wastage.  In addition, the company suffered product losses of up to 20% for the last 12 years. As an expert in dry-running compression, Burckhardt Compression was certain a better solution could be found.

We didn’t think that this level of performance was possible! Burckhardt Compression diagnosed the issue swiftly and executed the repairs with precision. Our second compressor was booked in for the same refurbishment and we will be involving Burckhardt Compression in many more overhaul projects in other facilities, based on the remarkable results of this project.

Johan Maartens, Air Products, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa

Customer challenges

• Sealing elements and rods
• Keeping compressor downtime to a minimum
• Reduced gas flow and temperature issues
• Gas leakage of up to 20%
• Power wastage
• Internal leakages

Our solution

• Profound root cause analysis of the compressor
• Redesign 2^nd stage packing case assemblies
• Create new piston ring set
• Piston rod refurbishment
• Cylinder liner renewal

Customer benefits

• All bad actors were eliminated
• Compressors ran for 22 months without incident
• Production losses dropped from 20% to 2%
• Internal leakage was stopped
• Emissions reduced
• Energy consumption has been reduced per m³ gas compressed by 25%
• Substantial increase in lifetime of wear parts
• Significant reduction in maintenance costs

• Non-Burckhardt
• Success Stories
• Industrial gas
• Compressor sealing solutions
• Compressor rings
• BC ACTIVATE holistic compressor assessment
• Corrective actions
• Emission management solutions