Developments and experience in dry gas seals and monitoring systems

Dry gas seals are used as normally reliable compressor components for steadily increasing pressures. The most demanding conditions are those for off-design conditions such as start up, shut down and settle out. Experience in this direction is explained by some typical problems and their solutions. It proves that the control and monitoring system design is as important as the seal design itself. Additionally the development, application and experience for ductile coated seats instead of silicon carbide is presented for an industrial application on a production platform.