EagleBurgmann Espey

Compressors

Com­pres­sors place the highest demands on the sealing systems in use. Gear and screw com­pres­sors are used in cryo­genic plant and air sep­a­ra­tion equip­ment, for CO2 com­pres­sion, and for syn­the­ses in the chemical and petro­chem­i­cal in­dus­tries, the oil and gas in­dus­tries, as well as in power plant tech­nol­ogy and in energy recovery. These complex processes, often con­sist­ing of multiple stages with strict re­quire­ments, present sealing tech­nol­ogy with par­tic­u­lar chal­lenges. Espey® carbon floating ring seals from EagleBurgmann Espey are designed to meet these chal­lenges, where pres­sures may rise to 250 bar and where the seals are exposed to toxic and ag­gres­sive media. Using a modular system, they are in­di­vid­u­ally cus­tomized to the op­er­at­ing pa­ra­me­ters of any par­tic­u­lar ap­pli­ca­tion. The com­pre­hen­sive range of types con­tributes to ensuring the re­li­a­bil­ity and func­tion­al­ity of in­dus­trial equip­ment.

Application example: Sealing of  gear compressor for the fertilizer production

Issue and challenge:

Urea is the most widely used nitrogen fer­til­izer agent in the world. Urea is man­u­fac­tured in a syn­the­sis tower at high pressure and high tem­per­a­ture through a process of high-pres­sure syn­the­sis from liquid ammonia and a gas-wa­ter mixture with 88.7 % CO2. This gives rise to syn­thetic ammonium car­bamide. De­hy­drat­ing while adding acid and heating, and further pro­cess­ing finally yield a white gran­u­late – the fer­til­izer. The high pres­sures required by the process are gen­er­ated in multi-stage radial in­te­grally geared com­pres­sors. Each com­pres­sor stage requires a chamber seal with barrier gas and a leakage con­nec­tion. For reasons of working safety, the highly com­pressed CO2 must never escape from the process area into the at­mos­phere.

 

 

 

Solution from EagleBurgmann Espey:

For the eight com­pres­sor stages, Espey de­vel­oped the compact Espey® WKA802HD chamber seal with barrier gas and leakage con­nec­tions, and with up to eight seal rings in up to three ring groups for pres­sures of up to 140 bar (2030.53 PSI), tem­per­a­tures up to 225 °C (437 °F), and rotation speeds of up to about 40,000 rpm. Nitrogen is used as barrier gas. Each of the eight stages has a special version of the Espey® WKA802HD, with dif­fer­ent lengths, and with dif­fer­ent seal and external di­am­e­ters. The one-piece bandaged carbon seal rings are axially sprung to help deal with vi­bra­tions during the startup and rundown phases of the geared com­pres­sor. The seal solution has a long service life, is main­te­nance-free, and is designed for dry running.

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