Design of a Turbomachine Set for a Fluid Catalytic Cracking Plant and Its Shop-Testing Under Full-Load Conditions

In fluid catalytic cracking plants, heavy hydrocarbons are converted into low-boiling point products. The highly developed technology of this process makes it particularly suitable for the handling of heavy fractions and thus for energy economy in the future. Starting from a concise description of the energy recovery system, this paper details the design features of a turbo machine set for an FCC plant, with the emphasis on the design of the four-stage 12,000 kW process gas expander. Since this expander incorporates new design features, an extensive test programme was carried out at a large turbomachinery test facility, where, in addition to testing the individual machine units under full-load conditions, a string test of the complete turbomachine set was performed under hot-gas conditions.