Altronic and ACI Services (ACI) have announced a strategic partnership that enables users of Altronic’s DE-4000/ACM-4000 gas compressor control package to integrate ACI’s eRCM compressor monitoring and safety solution into their control systems without the need for additional hardware.
“Delivering the eRCM solution as a part of the DE-4000/ACM-4000 system without the additional cost and complexity of additional control panel hardware offers unique value to our users,” said David Lepley, president of Altronic. “Bringing together these two world-class solutions into a single, integrated, and accessible package offers assured safe and efficient service on the compression packages so essential to field operations.”
Altronic’s DE-4000 is a control system specifically designed to protect, monitor, and control critical rotating machinery, such as engine or motor-driven compressors, pumps, and generators operating in harsh/hazardous areas. The ACM-4000 is an embedded single board computer for industrial control applications.
“Our DE-4000/ACM-4000 package is a purpose-built compressor control and automation solution that brings together configurability with unique customization and application engineering capability,” said Lepley. “Altronic is producing an embedded computer specific for this industry and building all the necessary elements into it. By integrating eRCM, we now have full, OEM [original equipment manufacturer]-based, advanced compressor modeling in the unit control panel without any additional installation requirements, which is a real game changer. The eRCM takes sensor readings multiple times per second and returns model-based feedback to the software that is running in the DE-4000/ACM-4000. This allows it to make decisions as to whether or not the next step is permissible. If there is an unsafe condition, for example, the compressor takes action. So instead of having static safety set points that are common in typical unit control panels, the addition of eRCM allows us to take safety and operating efficiency to the next level.”
ACI’s eRCM calculates and displays unit performance outputs such as powers, flows, pressures, and temperatures. Users specify compressor geometry (frame, cylinder, stage, throw, valving, etc.), operating ranges, gas analyses, and unloading devices. The eRCM software models unit performance and safety, helping end users decide on hardware changes.
“Over time, typical operating pressures may change at a station. Within seconds, a user can model adding a new fixed-volume clearance pocket to a cylinder to identify if that proposed change provides sufficient unloading to accommodate the new operating pressures. Furthermore, no compressor performance program is complete without an ability to improve its predictions,” said Dwayne Hickman, vice president, eRCM Products and Solutions at ACI. “Our eRCM accepts results from analyzer data and then uses this real-world data to tune performance predictions to better accommodate the effects of pulsation, pressure drops, effective clearances, actual valve and parasitic losses, friction losses, and more. Each OEM has different calculations for safety on their equipment. The eRCM supports all OEMs and gives the operator insight into what the equipment can do at different settings of the clearance pockets or unloading the valves, for example. They’ll be able to see what the flow rates would be, whether it’s safe to do so, and how much power is going to be required. All of this is happening right on the control panel. With integration of the eRCM into Altronic’s DE-4000/ACM-4000 control package, operators will know the consequences of making changes before any changes are made.”
Hickman continued, “another feature of this technology integration is that the control panel, based upon site gas analysis, will be able to better manage the temperatures of the gas by adjusting the cooler to help prevent water dropout, hydrates, and/or liquid hydrocarbon dropouts. Also, by including eRCM, the DE-4000/ACM-4000 now has the computing power to look ahead. For example, it verifies safety before the suction pressure is throttled, or speed is changed. So, it is not just looking at what pressures it is seeing right now, but it is also solving what-if scenarios in the background 24/7.”
“For Altronic, an important part is to be able to take this incremental technology into a control panel and make this functionality accessible beyond midstream applications, where ACI has traditionally done their best work,” said David Bell, senior vice president at Altronic. “This technology bundle allows us to be able to move into the upstream side and do so economically, where a user can not only afford the technology, but they can manage it themselves. We can support horsepower down to 300 and 400 horsepower [223 and 298 kW] in upstream applications.”
While the first delivery of the DE-4000/ACM-4000 control package with eRCM is scheduled for Q4 2024, the partnership between Altronic and ACI has been in the works for quite some time.
“This is something that was discussed many years ago. At that time, the computing power in the panel hadn’t caught up to the point where we could really take advantage of it,” said Bell. “But as our products have matured and that level of edge computing has come down into the panel to where it is today, it started to make sense. ACI is a leader in compressor modeling. We see ourselves the same way in terms of the technology we deliver to the panel, so it’s a great fit.”
“ACI and Altronic share the same vision that the integration of these two premium technologies will bring a new level of advanced monitoring and control to gas compressors across ranges of any asset size and any complexity,” said Chad Brahler, president of ACI. “The Altronic DE-4000/ACM-4000 and ACI’s embedded eRCM system come together in delivering incremental new value to gas compressor operators worldwide.”
This article appears in the September 2024 issue of Gas Compression Magazine. Click Here to see additional images included in the published article.
