The role of cylinder liners in Reciprocating Compressors
Hossam Younis
Regional Repair Manager I Aftermarket Sales & Support Services | Repairs, Troubleshooting & Root Cause Analysis | Quality & Safety | 12+ Years in Reciprocating Compressors | Oil & Gas l Team Development
Today we will discuss the importance of cylinder liners in reciprocating compressors. The cylinder liner serves as a sleeve that manages the friction between the piston movement and the cylinder body, primarily through its contact with the guide ring.
The running area of the cylinder liner is the sealing surface, emphasizing the significance of surface roughness quality. The profile of the liner's inner diameter (ID) directly influences the lifetime of the guide ring and its sealing performance with the piston ring.
When the guide ring operates on a rough surface, it undergoes excessive wear initially, resulting in material loss and a shortened lifetime. Ideally, the surface roughness value should be lower than 0.6 Ra micrometers. However, it's essential to understand that Ra value doesn't tell you everything and to consider the machining method. For instance, honing creates a smoother surface by eliminating sharp peaks and edges, facilitating the buildup of a PTFE film on the liner ID, especially in dry running cases.
In lubricated applications, the valleys left by honing are filled with lubricating oil.
Here are good examples of possibility of having same Ra value for a good surface profile and another profile which could be a result of machining marks.
Honing will remove all the Peaks and provide smoother surface for the PTFE rings to run over it.
Furthermore, it's crucial to understand the dimensional wearing limits of the liner ID. Exceeding these limits leads to increased radial clearances between the piston ring and liner ID, resulting in more leakages, friction, heat generation, elevated temperatures, accelerated wear, reduced compressor lifetime, decreased availability, and higher maintenance costs.
Respecting the wearing limits is essential to avoid these consequences.
Stay tuned for more insights on reciprocating compressors in our upcoming articles. Your feedback and interactions are highly appreciated.
Executive Board Member at KB DELTA, INC.
3 个月Well written and very easy to read and follow. Insightful ????and thank you for sharing . I will be respectfully re-posting.
Mechanical Engineer ll Rotary Equipment & Reliablity ll Digital Transformation ll Oil and Gas
3 个月Insightful
mechanical supervisor at petrogas indonesia
7 个月yes
Machinery & Reliability Industrial Consultant. Unconventional Solutions to Machinery Failure; Finding The Failure Mice. All Opinions are the authors personal opinions.
7 个月Good subject. You may want to expand this article by the following: 1- Explain in a few paragraphs why Liners are installed in compressor Cylinders, and why some manufacturers have decided not to use them such as Ariel. 2- Explain the various liner interference fits and discussion on optimum metallurgy selections typically used. 3- Explain the critical subject of Liner bore surface hardness minimum required, and its impact on cylinder and Piston rings-Wear Bands reliability.
Gas Compression Consultant at PMC Engineering Ltd (UK)
7 个月The main reasons for cylinders to be honed, many believe it’s better to leave them but companies that hone are finding the cylinders or Liners whichever keep their roundness which in turn gives better performance?