From April 27th to 29th, the first great national craftsman innovation exchange conference was held in Shenzhen, with local trade unions and industrial trade unions from all provinces and cities participating in the exhibition. China National Defense Post and Telecommunications Union, together with 12 member units, set up a theme exhibition area for national defense post and telecommunications industry, focusing on the pillars of a great power, the great national craftsman, major industrial innovation achievements and employee innovation achievements of 12 central enterprise groups. After being reviewed and selected by the Organizing Committee of China National Defense Posts and Telecommunications Union, the winning work of Changying cup —“Independently developed 30MW gas turbine-driven centrifugal compressor unit for natural gas long-distance pipeline” declared by the tem representing our company was successfully selected.

Overcoming difficulties and achieving from nothing

Long-distance natural gas pipeline is the major artery of energy transportation in China, and it is an important part of national energy structure adjustment. As the “heart” of long-distance pipeline, gas turbine-driven compressor unit (hereinafter referred to as “compressor unit”) is the key to ensure the safe and reliable transportation of natural gas. China’s industrial gas turbines once had a weak foundation in the design, materials, production technology and other aspects of core components, and did not have the ability of independent research and development. The compressor units relied on imports for a long time, and the national strategic energy safety transportation was subject to people, which was an urgent problem of “autonomy” of key equipment to be solved in China.

In April 2009, the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Energy Administration and other departments decided to promote the independent development of key equipment for long-distance natural gas pipelines based on the construction of the Second West-East Gas Pipeline Project, and include the localization of 30 MW gas-driven compressor units in the national major science and technology project of “Development of Large Oil and Gas Fields and Coalbed Methane”. Our Team was responsible for leading the development and grasping the overall technology. After more than 10 years, we have made breakthroughs in more than 10 core key technologies such as time-space uniformity control of combustion temperature field in ecological combustion chambers and three-dimensional heat-fluid-solid coupling algorithm for large enthalpy drop turbines, independently developed 30 MW gas turbine and gas-driven compressor units with independent intellectual property rights, and successively carried out demonstration assessment and commercial application in the national pipeline network.

During the application stage of the unit in the compressor station, our team continued to carry out technical upgrading work, conducted deep mining and multi-dimensional analysis of the unit operation data, and successively completed the adaptability optimization of ignition system and ventilation system, the development of high-efficiency sealing structure of long-life nozzle, and the upgrading of unit monitoring system, which laid a solid foundation for the reliability growth and usability improvement of the unit.

Continuous innovation to ensure unit operation

Our team fully cooperated with oil and gas users such as the national pipeline network to carry out natural gas supply guarantee work, formulated a special inspection plan for units, effectively identified and dealt with potential hidden danger points of units, reduced unplanned downtime by more than 10 times, and effectively extended the average time between failures, availability and reliability of units. Last year, the operation time of several units in domestic compressor stations exceeded 10,000 hours one after another, especially the single unit in Wuzhou compressor station which was operated at high load all year round, becoming the only unit in State Pipeline Network Group Corporation that exceeded 8,000 hours in an annual operation.

“Sharp edge of a sword comes out from grinding, and plum blossom’s fragrance comes from the bitter cold”. After tens of thousands of hours of tempering and testing, the 30 MW compressor unit has become a stable and reliable domestic core power equipment in China’s energy field. In April 2021, commissioned by the National Energy Administration, China Machinery Industry Federation and China General Machinery Association organized an appraisal and acceptance meeting on “Development and Application of 30MW Gas Drive Compressor Unit”. Academicians and experts attending the meeting believed that the overall technology of the unit reached the international advanced level, breaking the foreign monopoly and filling the domestic gap. The application of the unit achieved remarkable economic and social benefits, which was of great significance for promoting the development of China’s gas turbine industry and the localization of key equipment of natural gas pipelines.