System and method of determining top-dead-center (TDC) of reciprocating compressor

A system comprising:

• at least one computing device configured to identify a top-dead-center (TDC) position of a piston within a compressor cylinder by performing actions including:
• extracting a revolution data set representing piston angles over a single revolution of a piston within a compressor cylinder from an asynchronous waveform indicating pressure inside the compressor cylinder;
• evaluating a property corresponding to the pressure at each piston angle of the revolution data set;
• determining whether each piston angle of the revolution data set is an invalid piston angle that does not correspond to the TDC position of the piston within the compressor cylinder based at least in part on a comparison of the evaluated property from the respective piston angle to a respective threshold;
• removing data representing invalid piston angles from the revolution data set to form a refined data set;
• and
• identifying a determined piston angle representing a data value of the refined data set as the TDC position of the piston within the compressor cylinder;
• wherein the at least one computing device is configured to identify the average piston angle as the TDC position of the piston within the compressor cylinder without the use of a phase-reference transducer.

A non-transitory computer readable media comprising program code, which when executed on at least one computing device, causes the at least one computing device to identify a top-dead-center (TDC) position of a piston within a compressor cylinder by performing actions including:

• obtaining an asynchronous waveform indicating measured pressures inside the compressor cylinder;
• extracting a revolution data set representing piston angles over a single revolution of the piston within the compressor cylinder from the asynchronous waveform;
• evaluating a property corresponding to the measured pressure at each piston angle of the revolution data set;
• determining whether each piston angle of the revolution data set is an invalid piston angle that does not correspond to the TDC position of the piston within the compressor cylinder based at least in part on a comparison of the evaluated property from the respective piston angle to a respective threshold;
• removing data representing invalid piston angles from the revolution data set to form a refined data set;
• determining an average piston angle for the single revolution from the refined data set;
• identifying the average piston angle as representing a data value of the refined data set as the TDC position of the piston within the compressor cylinder;
• and
• adjusting the refined data set to order the data value of the TDC position of the piston within the compressor cylinder to be a first data value in the refined data set;
• wherein the at least one computing device is configured to identify the average piston angle as the TDC position of the piston within the compressor cylinder without the use of a phase-reference transducer.