The Duisburg Mega Test Center, revisited Back in July 2008, Venture reported on the inaugu-ration of the stunning new Mega Test Center — the MTC — built as part of the facilities at Siemens Oil & Gas international headquarters at Duisburg, Germany. Now, just one year after its official open-ing, we re-visit the giant new Center to see if reality has met expectations.

complete steam and electric drive systems, massive multi-stage compressors and all ancillaries, including lubrication and coolant systems, controls and instrumen-tation, can be as large as a good-sized house, weigh in at many hundreds of tonnes and consume enough energy to power a small town. Two of these seven super-sized heavyweights from the Siemens stable, developed and built at Duisburg and tested in the new MTC, were designed for air separation applications. Two further machine-strings were built for use in natural gas liquefaction (LNG) plants and the other three compressor strings to complete their test-regimes in the new facility were designed for conti-nuous-process applications in the petrochemical industry and for gas liquefaction.

Making it big in ChinaChina’s huge coal deposits not only make this black gold the most important source of energy in the country, but new technologies also

Designed to provide comprehen-sive test facilities for compressors and their associated drive systems in all sizes including the largest machines currently designed and built by Siemens the company’s giant Mega Test Center has just celebrated its very first ‘birthday’. Inaugurated in March 2008, less than two years after the first earth-moving machines rumbled onto the site, the MTC has seen a full twelve months of engineering activity and now presents a rather different appearance to the vast, almost-empty building which welcomed the crowds of invited guests during the opening ceremony.

Heavyweight testingThe past year has been one of continuously increasing activity, with comprehensive testing suc- cessfully completed on no fewer than seven compressor strings. While at first glance this may not sound like a particularly impres-sive number, bear in mind that these ‘strings’, comprising the

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Monitor

The Duisburg Mega Test Center, revisited

May 2009 Venture 17

1 A three-case (low/mid/high-pressure) steam-turbine-driven compressor string for an olefin plant in the Persian Gulf region.

2 During test drive: One of two massive air-compressor trains currently being installed in what will become the world’s largest polypropylene plant, located at Yinchuan in China’s coal-rich Ningxia region.

3 A CO2 compressor for the main

fluidized-bed gasification process at the Yinchuan propylene plant.

4 Main refrigerant compressor trains for an Indonesian mid-size LNG plant — an emerging appli-cation in the oil and gas industry.

The MTC at a glance: Assembling and testing of up to six compressor trains

in parallel

Full-load, closed-loop testing of compressor trains of up

to100 MW

Part-load, open-loop testing of mega-scale compressors

with electric motors of up to 100 MW;

with steam turbines of up to 35 MW;

and with gas turbines of up to 160 MW.

Direct access from heavy-load crane to jetty

International’s Yinchuan coal-to-chemicals polypropylene plant. Like the previous two machines it comprises an STC-GV six-stage integrally geared compressor with an SST-600 steam-turbine drive, but this third monster machine train will form part of the main fluidized-bed gasification process, where coal is converted into synthetic-gas feedstock. Designed to compress 82,300 cubic meters of carbon dioxide per hour to a final pressure of 58 bar, the entire machine underwent efficiency-testing at the MTC using CO2 test-gas in a closed-loop configura-tion, prior to being readied for shipping.

Planned expansionWith the Mega Test Center current-ly operating at close to maximum capacity, with some 20 machine strings either on test or being assembled, as one mega-machine is shipped out another is being readied to move in. While some final commissioning work on the existing building is still being carried out, plans to expand the facility are already in place. This will not only include increasing the number of highly qualified test engineers at the Center, but also extending its capabilities. Believed to be the only facility of its kind capable of supplying steam at 100 bar/500°C at flow rates up to 7,500 cubic meters per

hour to test advanced prototype machines, it is planned to increase flow rates still further to meet customer requirements for even larger and more advanced steam- turbine drives. A separate gas- turbine test facility is also being planned, using shared facilities including cooling systems, while test facilities including large load- banks are scheduled to meet future needs for complete steam and gas turbine generator sets. With visitors from major interna-tional customers from the oil and gas industry continually impressed with the scale and range of exper- tise available at the MTC, reducing on-site commissioning times and reducing customer risk, its ‘mega’ future looks set to continue.

enable the production of liquid fuels and a very wide variety of chemicals from basic coal feed-stock, offering increasing indepen-dence from crude oil and natural gas. The two massive air-com- pressor-trains, which were assem- bled and recently completed comprehensive operational testing at the MTC, were ordered by Air Liquide (Hangzhou) for the Ningxia Coal Industry Group in the People’s Republic of China, under a contract worth some 25 million euros. Currently being installed in what will become the world’s largest polypropylene plant, operated by Shenhua Ltd and due to start production later this year, the two giant machine-trains each consist of an STC-SR axial-radial air compressor, an STC-GV (H) final-pressure air compressor, and an SST-600 steam-turbine drive from Siemens’ Görlitz manufactu-ring center and all ancillary systems and controls. Operating rather like enormous refrigerators, the compressor trains will be used in air separation plants and will each produce 3,000 tons of oxygen per day. With a capacity of 700,000 cubic meters of air per hour, the machines are themselves among the largest of their kind ever built.

A third compressor string, built at Duisburg and assembled and tested in the new Center, is also being shipped to Shenhua

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