Webinar Description:
Reciprocating compressors keep critical processes running, but they also demand a lot more hands-on care than a comparable turbo-compressor. Join us for the first session in our reciprocating compressor training series, where we’ll walk you through a practical, proven approach to monitoring and diagnostics that helps reduce downtime, cut life cycle costs, and give your team confidence that problems are caught long before they become failures.
In Part 1, we’ll focus on the running gear (piston, piston rod and crosshead), the cylinder (valves, piston rings and cylinder liner) and the distance piece, walking through exactly how acceleration vibration and impact are monitored on each, including sensor location and configuration, so you leave with techniques you can put to use right away.
We’ll also cover the acceleration signals and descriptors behind the scenes: acceleration waveform vs. crank angle signal, vibration segments for monitoring cylinder valves, piston rings and crosshead, and the descriptor that counts impacts per crank rotation. You’ll see how condition monitoring descriptors are correlated with machine states to sharpen fault detection and diagnostics reliability, and how protection descriptors and voting logic algorithms add another layer of confidence.
Finally, we’ll bring it all together with diagnostic plots, including the acceleration vs. crank angle plot overlaid with dynamic pressure and rod load plots, the vibration segment and impact counting plots, and trend overlays, so you can see how these tools work in practice, not just hear about them.
Whether you’re new to reciprocating compressor monitoring or looking to sharpen your existing approach, this session is designed to be approachable, practical, and genuinely useful for your day-to-day work. We hope you’ll join us!
Learning Takeaways:
Understand why reciprocating compressors need more than the typical vibration monitoring solutions used on turbomachinery
Discover the benefits of acceleration impact monitoring for the running gear, cylinder valves and distance piece, and how it compares to traditional overall RMS vibration monitoring
Build confidence understanding the descriptors and plots used to monitor the running gear, cylinder valves and distance piece
About the Presenter:
Mike Hastings is a Sr. Application Engineer with Bruel & Kjaer Vibro, where he has been working for the past 36 years. Here he has worked with developing various condition monitoring strategies and optimization techniques for various machines, and is currently working with strategic market development, analysis and communications. He has written numerous articles, papers and webinars on machine condition monitoring, especially in the LNG industry. He is also convenor for an for the ISO work group for creating standards for condition monitoring and diagnostics of machines, where ISO 17934:2026 was just recently published (Condition monitoring and diagnostics of machines — Reciprocating compressors).
