Booster Bearing Failure Reduction Through a Novel Thermodynamic Analysis

Abstract

The gas booster station of a steel works has experienced excessive bearing failures since commissioning over two decades ago. This station was designed with redundancy, allowing for automatic switch-over between two gas booster fans. Bearing failures were observed, on average once every 15.7 days, with instances where both fans experienced simultaneous downtime. Booster failures resulted in regular station downtime, preventing Coke Oven Gas (COG) transport to an end user. This flammable by-product is used as a heat source and all unutilized volumes are flared, resulting in energy wastages. Furthermore, the absence of COG increases Natural Gas (NG) usage, procured at a cost. Traditional root cause analysis techniques failed to identify the cause of these excessive bearing failures. However, multiple in-depth data analysis studies resulted in a thermodynamic investigation, exposing liquid and solid particles within the COG to be responsible for the failures. This allowed for the design of an in-line particle collector, eliminating excessive failures. Following the particle collector installation, only two strategic bearing changes took place over the next 41 weeks, with reduced bearing vibration levels compared to before. The station experienced no failure downtime during this period, resulting in reduced COG flaring and thus improved energy utilization.