Multi-channel vibration measurements at K6P offshore platform

Stork gears & services was hired to record multi-channel vibration data at total's k6p north sea offshore platform.

The project challenge was to determine why one of the critical gas turbines experienced starting problems.

Our customer Total is a leading multinational energy company with operations in more than 130 countries. Total is one of the largest integrated oil and gas companies in the world. Total's K6P North Sea offshore platform is a combined gas production and accommodation platform, located in the North Sea near Holland.

Gasturbines

The platform was equipped with two Siemens (EGT) gas turbines, type Tornado. A gas turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a flow of combustion gas. It has an upstream compressor coupled to a downstream turbine, with a combustion chamber in-between.

On the platform, one of the two gas turbines could not restart due to excessive vibration levels. When started, the gas turbines would turn off automatically. Each gas turbine is driving a barrel compressor via a speed-increasing gearbox. The gas production of the platform is seriously reduced if one of the compressors is out of service. It's therefore very important to identify the root cause of the starting problem as soon as possible.  

Multi-channel vibration measurements

Stork Gears & Services has an extensive knowledge of vibration measurements and vibration analyses. We are able to rapidly perform these measurements in any part of the world in order to detect and report machinery malfunctions of the customer’s rotating equipment. At the K6P North Sea offshore platform, diagnostics engineers recorded vibration levels using a real-time "multi-channel" analyser. Using this recording the deviating dynamic tendencies of the gas turbines were detected. Our recommendations gained from our vibration analyses will help to minimise restart problems in the future.