Rod Drop

Rod Drop monitors are used to detect excessive wear of the pistons consumable
rider bands (also known as wear bands). With this information, we can plan to shut
down the machine for a relatively inexpensive routine rider band replacement job
avoiding the expensive repairs that would be required if metal-to-metal contact
were allowed to occur between the piston and the cylinder liner.

Traditional rod drop monitors simply triggered an alarm when the vertical position
of the piston rod exceeded a setpoint corresponding to significant rider band wear.
Newer methods, such as Rod Position monitoring, measure the dynamic position
of the rod throughout its entire stroke. Typically, these methods use an orthogonal
(perpendicular) pair of eddy current proximity probes as well as high speed data
acquisition and processing (up to 720 samples per crankshaft revolution).

Some other variations on the Rod Position measurement are known as Rod
Deflection, Rod Motion, and Rod Runout. Rod Position monitoring will be
introduced in the module that follows this one.

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 Rod Drop

Fundamentals Effective monitoring of rider band wear can allow us to

proactively that appropriate maintenance actions in a timely manner.

Monitor Settings Rod drop monitoring can only be effective when

instrumentation settings are appropriate.

Determining Trigger Angle It is important to establish an appropriate crank

angle value for collection of instantaneous rod position measurements, if this
type of signal processing will be used.

Probe Calibration For accurate measurements of piston rod displacement, it

is important to calibrate the proximity transducer for the actual conditions under
which it will be applied.

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 Rod Drop

Both the rider bands and the piston rings contact the cylinder liner. However, the
rider bands are designed to carry the full weight of the piston while the piston rings
are designed only to provide sealing between the piston and bore. The piston rings
and their mounting grooves are purposely designed with clearance to allow the
rings to float, without carrying any of the vertical load of the pistons weight. The
rider bands are intentionally designed to seat fully within their mounting grooves, so
that they can support the pistons weight.

Historically, rider bands were made from soft metals such as babbitt. In modern
designs, most rider bands are fabricated from plastics or composite materials
especially for non-lubricated cylinder designs. Rider bands can be one-piece
design (required by API-618) which are installed while segmented pistons are
disassembled or split design with step-cut or butt-cut ends.

Rider bands are designed to slowly wear away over time. In good operating
conditions, the rate of wear can be very low especially in lubricated-cylinder
applications. However, adverse conditions such as improper cylinder lubrication,
component misalignment, or excessive particulates or moisture in the process gas
can increase the wear rate.

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 Rod Drop

This photo shows what can happen to a piston when excessive rider band wear is
not detected in time. The scuff marks on the piston often correspond to matching
gouges in the cylinder liner. Due to material differences between the piston and
the cylinder liner (example: aluminum piston and steel liner) it is quite likely that the
cylinder will not be damaged as extensively as the piston.

Note: Some compressor designs incorporate replaceable cylinder liners, while

others use special treatments, such as nitriding to create cylinder surfaces that
are extremely resistant to erosion wear.

For visual reference this piston has been removed from its cylinder, rotated so
that it is upside-down and placed on a soft mat on the deck grating. The rigging
chainfall and hook that were used for lifting the piston and rod assembly are still
visible in the photo. The piston rings have been removed, but the one-piece rider
bands are still in place, awaiting disassembly of the segmented piston. Observe
that the rider bands appear to have been burnished down to the point where they
are completely flush with the outer surface of the piston.

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 Rod Drop

Historical methods used physical contact between the piston rod and a sensor
placed beneath it to indicate that the rod had dropped to the operational limits of
the rider bands. These sensors include roller-equipped limit switches and
pressurized chambers sealed with fuse metal plugs that melt due to frictional
contact, causing a measurable pressure drop in the detector. Contact sensors are
simple and inexpensive, but they only provide a one-shot signal with no warning.
They do not allow for any trending to be done over time.

A more effective monitoring method uses a non-contacting eddy current proximity

detector to take continuous measurements. This allows us to watch the rod drop
values closely as the rider bands wear, and to better anticipate and plan for
maintenance outages to replace the bands before metal-to-metal contact occurs.
(see next page)

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 Rod Drop

Since eddy current displacement probes do not contact the surface being
measured, they may be installed either above or below the piston rod, as
appropriate for the specific compressor design and component layout.

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 Rod Drop

This plot shows an actual rod drop trend that was collected for a hydrogen
compressor in refinery service. The monitor in this example was programmed to
collect instantaneous values at an appropriate value of crank angle (known as
trigger angle) that was determined for this specific installation.

Trending a measured parameter in this way enables long-term outage planning for
a proactive maintenance program. In this cylinder, the rider bands eroded at a
steady rate, losing approximately 50 mil (1270 microns) of material over a seven
month period.

Note: Trigger angle is discussed further in subsequent pages of this module.

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 Rod Drop

Due to the cramped conditions inside the cylinder, it is difficult to install a sensor to
measure the piston-to-bore clearance directly. For this reason, we normally
measure vertical rod position at the face of the pressure packing case, and
indirectly infer the piston position. Simple geometry is used to calculate the base
(B2) of the large right triangle with known dimensions L1 and L2, assuming that it is
similar to the smaller right triangle with known dimensions, B1 and L1.

The L1 and L2 dimensions need to be measured accurately, and entered into the
monitoring system. The monitor will use these values along with the measured
value of B1 to calculate B2 for each stroke of the piston. This example shows the
probe located above the piston rod looking downwards, although depending on the
specific installation, it may be more convenient to mount it below the rod looking
upwards. Either location may be used.

There are several factors that can add error to our rod drop monitoring. We
depend on four basic assumptions (listed on the following slide) to perform rod
drop measurement.

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 Rod Drop

1. Other factors besides rider band wear can cause the piston rod to drop. For
instance, wear of the crosshead shoes or pin bushing can introduce additional
clearance at the crosshead end of our assumed similar triangles.

2. The piston may not stay on the bottom of the cylinder during the entire stroke.
This situation is more likely with relatively small diameter, pistons used in high-
pressure cylinders that have many stages of pressure packing.

3. Rod flex may be significant, and it may occur in the horizontal direction as well
as in the vertical direction.

4. The piston may expand and contract as operating temperature varies due to
startup, load changes, or other factors such as unexpected transients occurring
to the cylinder cooling system, upstream gas process, or interstage coolers.

Note: Rod Position monitoring is less susceptible to these errors than Rod Drop
monitoring. It is introduced in the module that follows this one.

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 Rod Drop

This animation shows the simulated displacement signal from a proximity probe
that is mounted vertically beneath the piston rod on a perfect machine. Depending
on the specific compressor, it is just as valid (and sometimes preferable) to install
the probe above the rod, looking vertically downward.

Trigger angle is a simply a specified single value of crank angle at which the rod
drop monitor can be programmed to collect an instantaneous measurement of rod
displacement. This animation displays the crank angle numerically as it changes
from 0 to 360 degrees through each stroke of the piston.

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 Rod Drop

The linked animation shows the motion of an actual piston rod by displaying data
that was collected from a real machine as part of a research project. Proximity
probe pairs were installed at the scraper packing case, the intermediate wiper
packing case, and the pressure packing case, so that the lateral rod displacement
could be measured in two dimensions at three different locations. Note: This much
instrumentation is not typical!

The scale on the left side of the animated displacement plot has a scale of 2 mils of
displacement per division. The top pane of the animation is the view looking down
on the compressor, and shows that there is significant side-to-side motion of the
piston rod. The bottom pane is the view looking at the side of the machine, and
shows the vertical movement of the rod. The animation shows significant side-to-
side movement as well as vertical movement. Maximum displacement is roughly
80 mils peak to peak (40 divisions on the scale).

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 Rod Drop

(1) The monitor needs accurate values for L1 and L2 to calculate B2 from
measured values of B1.

(2) The monitor also needs to know when each cycle of crankshaft rotation occurs,
so that it can properly synchronize its data collection. This requires the use of a
once-per-turn reference signal (shown on following slide).

(3) For each stroke of the piston, the Rod Drop monitor can be programmed to
provide either a calculated Average value, or an instantaneous value that is
collected at a specified trigger angle. If an appropriate trigger angle can be
determined, the instantaneous values often provide more useful trending data
than the average values (described in subsequent slides).

(4) Finally, it is important that the proximity probe is calibrated for the actual piston
rod that it will be measuring. Standard scale factor is 200 mv/mil, but several
factors may cause the as-installed scale factor to be different. Factors include
composition of the piston rod alloy, surface treatments, coatings, or
contamination, and the roundness of the cylindrical rod itself (described in
subsequent slides).

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 Rod Drop

This slide shows the values that the monitor needs to have to calculate accurate
Rod Drop data. These values include the physical dimensions of connecting rod
length, piston rod length, stroke length, and probe position. The monitor will also
need to be programmed with the piston angle for this throw.

Recall from the Crank Angle module that Piston Angle is simply the number of
degrees of crankshaft rotation from the time the once-per-turn event is triggered to
the time that the throw of interest reaches TDC. In the example shown here, the
piston angle is approximately 40 degrees.

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 Rod Drop

Average Value This measurement has existed since the early days of analog
eddy current monitoring instruments. It requires only very simple processing to
filter the voltage signal from the proximity transducer to produce an average value.
One small advantage of this method is that it does not require a once per turn
reference signal. However, as we have seen in the Cylinder Pressure and Cylinder
Performance modules, it is vital to have an accurate crank angle measurement to
evaluate the dynamic pressure signal with respect to displaced volume. The
average rod drop value may be adequate for general trending, but significant errors
can sometimes be introduced when a compressor operates at a variety of different
loading conditions.

Instantaneous Value This measurement is collected only once during each

stroke at a specified value of crank angle, known as the trigger angle. It is not
averaged or filtered. If the trigger angle is selected carefully, this measurement
may provide more accurate trending for a compressor with changing operating
conditions. The next four pages describe some of the details that should be
considered when selecting an appropriate trigger angle.

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 Rod Drop

Selecting a trigger angle that occurs while the piston rod is under tension may
reduce errors introduced by flexing of the rod. However, this might not always be
true (Recall the research data that was shown with the animation on Page 11
Actual Piston Rod Behavior).

Selecting a trigger angle that corresponds to a relatively constant value of rod drop
over a variety of load conditions will usually reduce the errors that may be
introduced by changing compressor capacity.

Rod drop monitoring instruments may include default trigger angle settings. For
example, Bently Nevada rod drop monitors have traditionally used 240 degrees
as a default setting, based on research performed by a North American
compressor manufacturer. These default values provide a starting point for trigger
angle selection, but they should not be accepted as-is without validation.

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 Rod Drop

For the compressor in this example, pressure monitoring instrumentation and

diagnostic software was already in place. This allows us to determine values of
crank angle where the combined load is positive (tension) on the piston rod. For
this particular machine, the default trigger angle setting is not the best place to
start, as the piston rod is under compression at 240 degrees at both full load and
part load conditions. For Full Load conditions, the piston rod is under tension
between approximately 40 degrees and 196 degrees of crank angle. For Part
Load conditions, the rod is under tension from 0 to about 120 degrees, and again
from roughly 296 to 360 degrees. There is an overlapping crank angle range,
between about 40 and 120 degrees, where the piston rod is in tension for both Full
Load and Part Load conditions. This is a good place to start looking at actual rod
displacement to select a trigger angle that will work satisfactorily at all compressor
loads.

Note: If the compressor being evaluated does not already have permanent
pressure monitoring installed, it may be possible to install temporary sensors to
perform a rod load evaluation. Otherwise, it may be necessary to use calculated
data from the manufacturer, or operating experience from similar machines to
select a crank angle range where the piston is most likely under tension.

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 Rod Drop

On the previous slide, we observed that the piston rod is under tension at both Full
Load and Part Load conditions between a crank angle of roughly 40 to 120
degrees. Within this range, our goal is to find a crank angle value where the piston
rod displacement is fairly consistent no matter what load the compressor is
experiencing. This will allow us to establish setpoints for alarms that are not
activated spuriously every time the compressor is running at part load conditions.

For this particular machine, the piston rod displacement is about 46 mils at 60
degrees crank angle for both Full Load and Part Load conditions. So 60 degrees
would probably be a more effective Trigger Angle than the default value.

Note: In real-life it may be more typical that we would be using portable test
instruments to perform such an evaluation as part of an initial installation. The
following slide includes an example of the type of information that might be
available in such a situation.

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 Rod Drop

The purpose of this page is simply to emphasize that, although the concepts
involved in selecting a good trigger angle are simple, the process itself is often not
as straightforward. Portable test instruments, such as this digital oscilloscope, are
VERY flexible, and their settings must be understood very clearly in order to make
meaningful comparisons between rod position waveforms collected at different
times and operating conditions.

These two oscilloscope traces each show piston rod displacement values, as read
in voltage levels, from eddy current proximity transducers. In the timebase display
mode that was selected, each trace shows data for just over two and a half
complete revolutions of the crankshaft. Observe that the waveform pattern repeats
fairly consistently at each of the blue vertical lines.

When evaluating rod displacement values at different load conditions, it is

especially important to ensure that the oscilloscope is selected to the DC-coupled
mode, so that the voltage (and therefore displacement) readings can be evaluated
on a consistent scale.

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 Rod Drop

If the piston rod material is different from the material that was used for the factory
calibration of the proximity transducer, the scale factor will be incorrect. This will
result in inaccurate distance measurements. Even very thin wear-resistant plating
and surface treatments can change the electrical properties of the piston rod
enough to affect the scale factor of the displacement transducer.

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 Rod Drop

This example shows how a probe calibration curve can be affected by different
material properties of the target surface that is being viewed by a proximity
transducer. The slope of this curve is called the Scale Factor. In this example, the
Scale Factor for 4140 steel is approximately 200 mV per mil of displacement:

Scale Factor = (output voltage range) / (displacement range)

= 20 V / 100 mil = 0.200 V / mil, or 200 mV per mil.

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 Rod Drop

The shaft micrometer kit has a V-shaped saddle machined into its base, so that it
will remain secure while it is temporarily strapped to any cylindrical shaft. The
micrometer moves the probe closer or farther away from the shaft surface, in a
very precise manner.

Plotting the voltage of the transducer output signal vs. the physical distance of the
probe tip from the surface results in a probe curve, with Scale Factor indicated by
the slope of the curve (as shown on the previous page). This scale factor value
must be programmed into the Rod Drop monitor so that it can accurately convert
the proximity transducer signal into a distance measurement.

Note: The need for accurate probe calibration also holds true for the Rod Position
monitor, as we will see in the module that follows this one.

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 Rod Drop

For Further Reading: General Electric public reference document, GER-4274, Is

Rod Drop the Right Measurement for My Reciprocating Compressor?

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