【Ten Years of Rapid Development in Chemical Equipment】The first domestically produced natural gas turbine expander with a capacity of 10 million cubic meters was successfully put into operation between 2018 and 2023

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Ten years of rapid development in chemical engineering technology; praise for the prosperous and strong China. This is just a starting point to encourage more people to get involved and contribute to these discussions. The HaiChuan community becomes even better with your participation – we welcome everyone to join in the forum discussions. Be careful with fire risks as the heat increases in July. --------------------------------------------- From January 2020 to December 2021, CPECC’s Southwest Branch worked together with Sichuan Air Separation to develop natural gas expanders capable of handling 10 million cubic meters of gas per unit time. Leveraging its years of experience in this field, Sichuan Air Separation overcame the key technical challenges associated with large-scale natural gas expanders through research on the reliability of high-power rotors, the development of efficient working wheels and compressors, as well as research on high-power bearings and shaft seals. As a result, it developed a set of design methods unique to Sichuan Air Separation. Based on the R&D parameters, a prototype of the main unit was designed and manufactured, and in-house testing was carried out; the R&D results were approved by the project team. With the strong support of CPECC Southwest Branch, Sichuan Air Separation Expander Branch continued its research on the auxiliary system for natural gas expanders with a capacity of 1,000×10?Nm3/d, as part of the surface engineering projects related to the capacity expansion of the Jiaxian block in the Shenmu gas field of the Jidong Oil Field. Repetitive evaluations and optimizations were carried out on auxiliary systems such as the lubricating oil system, seal gas system, and seal gas recovery system, and the entire unit was delivered from the factory in November 2022. It operated continuously successfully during the joint commissioning of the natural gas processing unit at the Jidong Oilfield on May 24, 2023. The successful industrial operation of the 1000×104 Nm3/d natural gas expander marks the advancement of domestically produced expanders from the million-level to the ten-million-level, breaking foreign monopolies and technical barriers in the field of large and extra-large natural gas expanders.