Real-time modeling, control and optimization of turbo-machinery auxiliary plants

Abstract

In the Oil & Gas industry, the testing of auxiliary lubrication plants represents a mandatory preliminary activity before the whole turbo-machinery train (including the auxiliary lubrication plant) can be put in operation. To this end, the employment of both efficient and accurate plant models becomes very important to synthesize satisfactory control strategies for both testing and normal operation purposes. This way, many benefits (e.g. in terms of safety, times and costs of execution) can be achieved. Therefore, this article focuses on the development of innovative and efficient real-time models and control architectures to describe and regulate the auxiliary lubrication systems. All the new strategies have been validated through accurate real experimental campaign and real-time hardware. According to the Bond-Graph modeling strategy, an efficient lumped parameter model of the lube oil console has been built to properly optimize the description of such system and the efficiency of the control strategies...