For those who may be interested.

Thought I'd share a few pics of the engines we have where I work. I work for a Natural Gas Pipeline. We have a 30" pipeline that runs from Portland, TN all the way up to Joliet, IL. It goes through several compressor stations where the engines turn compressors to move the gas north or south in the pipeline depending on where it's needed. The big piston driven engines are called Recips, short for Reciprocating engines. They are 2700HP Clark TLA-8's, turbo charged 2 cycles. They run at a mere 300RPM, however with the amount of steel thats flying in these things you wouldn't want them to run any faster. The engines are about 34,500 cubic inches displacement. Yes, that's right, THIRTY FOUR THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED cubic inches. That's 8 cylinders at a 17" bore and 19" of stroke, 34,483.48cuin. to be precise. The other engine is our 4,000+ HP Solar Centaur 40 Turbine. Much like a jet engine it spins up and runs like mad, lol! 15,000 RPM is it's sweet spot believe it or not. I'll post up a few quick pictures and when I get time I'll post up some pictures of the connecting rods, pistons, rings, etc. and when I can I'll get pictures from the other stations of their engines.

First up the turbine. Not much to see except that it doesn't look very big at all for 4,000HP.




Now, the Clarks. We have 3 of the TLA-8's at this location. First a couple to give a general idea as to the size.



A shot here of the top of the #1 unit looking out over at the #2 and #3 units.


Here's a look at the compressor cylinders themselves. Natural gas enters through the suction pulsation bottle on the top, gets compressed in the double acting compressor cylinders and is discharged through the bottom into a discharge pulsation bottle under the floor grates.


This shot is of the compressor cylinders on Unit #2 from the top of #1.


Last but not least, a shot across the top of Unit #1 at the heads. If you notice the push rods, rockers and fuel valves... Yes, I said this is a two cycle engine. The fuel, which is natural gas, is directly injected into the cylinders.



That's all for now, I'll post more pics up soon of the cylinder liners, con rods, pistons, and more here very soon.

 

Wow, thats what all the parts I ship around look like when they are put together... I work for a truck company, and we ship stuff allover Alberta. Alberta Canada has a HUGE oil and gas sector probably much like Texas only larger , its where all the money is. We do have those shameful tarsands though... Anywhere you go out in the country there will be wellheads and pump stations, even in the middle of nowhere. I see alot of those compressor heads go through the docks for rebuilding.

Question time...

Do those massive turbo engines run on the natural gas they are pumping? If so, thats cool its like an unlimited gastank. It must make for nice clean parts when you take apart unlike diesel engines.

On initial startup, what on earth rotates it? My guess is a starter truck? Or compressed air since the cyls are large surface area?

How much oil on an oil change, and how frequent?

 

Glad to answer the questions. Answers in RED.

 

Some updates here. We changed the turbo charger on the #3 unit in September, I put some pics of this up to give everyone an idea of how big the turbos are that run these engines.


Here's a shot of the intake tower for Unit #1 on the left, and the engine coolant cooling towers for all of them on the right. In the background you can see the crane that is being used to lift the old turbo charger out and the new one in.



Here's a shot of the Old turbo being flown out to an awaiting trailer.


Here's the new one being set down and moved into place.













As you can see, it's not a run of the mill sized Turbocharger, LOL.

 

that is awesome this stuff always amazes me. I watch modern marvels alot and just in aw on how alot of stuff is ran that i never would thought were.

 

I've got some more pictures taken of some of the engines we have on our pipeline. These are at a different location than the one I work at and while three of them are smaller in horsepower, two of them are much, much larger in size and power. All five engines there are turbo charged, 2-cycle, natural gas burning units.

The first three pictures here of of some of the three 2,200Hp V12's they have at that location.





This one is a 3,700Hp V12 unit and very very large in size. So large in fact that it barely sees any run time due to the sheer amount of gas it can flow.




This shot is of the turbo charger and intercoolers on the unit. To give you an idea of how large it really is, in the pictures above of the turbocharger we changed out on our engine, they're actually almost the same physical size. It's hard to see the bigger parts of the turbo or really get a sense of it's size way up there but it's true.



This one is the largest in physical size, but is only rated at 3,400Hp and is a V8. The compressor cylinder piston's on this unit are 18" in diameter. Much different than the others which are 12" and 10" respectively.





Now for the money shots, so to speak. The third 2,200Hp unit was undergoing some compressor work when I was taking the pictures, so I was able to get some nice shots of the compressor cylinders, pistons & rods, valves, etc. and some of the inside of the engine showing the crank shaft and connecting rods for both the power cylinders and the compressor cylinders.

Here's an overview type shot of the compressor cylinders, valves, pistons and rods out of the unit.


Here's another shot of the compressor cylinder and the compressor valves.


Here's a shot of the compressor pistons and rods. The rods pass through the back of the cylinder and thread into what's called a crosshead, which is in the next photo. The connecting rod off the crank moves the crosshead like a piston in an engine and allows the compressor rod to then be stroked straight forward and back.


Here's the crosshead. Yes, it's a huge chunk of steel. The pin that connects the con-rod to the crosshead is 4" in diameter and is held in place by that big square plate you see in the center. You can see the hole on the front of the crosshead where the compressor piston rod threads in.


And finally, here's a few shots of the inside of the crankcase on that engine. You can see the size of the con-rods, crank and visualize the size of the crank pins. Everything about these kinds of industrial engines are big, heavy and meant to last. You have to remember that all five of these engines, like the three at my location, were built and put into service in 1959.







There ya go guys, hope you enjoyed that little tour.

 

thats so cool i worked on diesel engines but not that huge

 

Dude absolutely amazing. This would be a fun but stressful job. Id love it.



Brb buying one of them turbos and fabricating my blazer.lol

 

lol that turbo would squish your truck

 

Free front end drop