Available in 100-and 250-ft lengths, NITRA 16mm polyurethane tubing has a shore A 98 hardness rating, provides tight outside diameter tolerance and has superior kink resistance. The ether-based tubing provides excellent hydrolysis, oil and cold resistance. Available in four colors, 16mm polyurethane tubing starts at $114. A variety of 16mm push-to-connect fittings are also available.

NITRA brass adapter fittings and plugs are available in 10 different styles to meet most pneumatic applications such as air, water, oil, oxygen, nitrogen, and argon. Machined from yellow brass bar stock or forging, the fittings withstand pressure up to 800 psi. Designed with NPT threaded connections, male and female connectors are available in 1/8-to 1/2-in. sizes, in either two-pack or five-pack quantities.

Also added are quick-disconnect fittings which allow easy changing of tools or hose connections. Plugs and couplers, in 1/4.in and 3/8-in. sizes, are available in Industrial Interchange manual or automatic and universal automatic styles. Male and female fittings are NPT threaded and withstand pressure up to 250 psi. Swivel fittings made of chrome-plated steel with maximum pressure of 145 psi are also available.

NITRA aluminum manifolds withstand maximum pressure up to 500 psi and are available in two styles. Round manifolds feature one 3/8-in. NPT threaded input and either two or three 1/4-in. NPT outputs. Rectangular manifolds have 1/2-in. NPT inputs on either end and have either three or five 1/4-in. NPT outputs. Manifold prices start at $6.75.

NITRA blowguns (or nozzles) are available in heavy-duty palm type with safety tip, pistol grips (aluminum and plastic models), pocket, and plastic grip with flexible nozzles in various lengths. The blowguns have a maximum input pressure of 120 psi and start at $4.25. Additional NITRA accessories include 1/2-in. thread sealant tape and a 2-in. tubing cutter.

AutomationDirect

Pneumatic Tips

Available in 50-ft lengths, NITRA bonded polyurethane tubing is made by a continuous bonding process, resulting in a strong, organized, color-coded package with flexibility and kink resistance. The shore A 98 hardness rating provides tight outside diameter tolerance, making it ideal for use with NITRA push-to-connect fittings.

Available in 5/32 to ½-in. and 4mm to 12mm sizes, bonded straight tubing starts at $13.

NITRA polyurethane coiled tubing has also been added. Coiled tubing is available in single, double, and triple bonded configurations with double and triple coils in contrasting colors. Available in three working lengths, and in sizes ranging from 5/32-inch to 3/8-inch and 4mm to 10mm, prices start at $4.50.

The addition of pneumatic air hoses includes reinforced polyurethane straight, as well as coiled and reinforced coiled styles. Available in quarter-inch and 3/8-in. sizes, the hoses are fitted with one rigid and one swivel fitting, based on hose inside diameter.

Reinforced polyurethane hose comes in 25 and 50 ft packages. With a shore A 85 hardness rating, the hose is strong, flexible and kink resistant. Prices start at $11.50 for a 25-ft package.

NITRA coiled and reinforced coiled hoses are available in eight, 12 and 16-ft working lengths. Coiled hose has a shore A 98 hardness rating while the reinforced coiled hose has a shore A 85 hardness rating. Prices start at $12.50 for coiled hose and $23 for reinforced coiled hose.

AutomationDirect

Pneumatic Tips

NITRA tubing

Pneumatic Tips

Usually, when demanding rotary movements are required at high loads, energy chains with reverse bending radii are used. Typically, they allow circular movements of up to 540 degrees but they need deep and wide installation spaces.

The new system (shown above) allows rapid rotating movements of up to 3,000 degrees and depends only on the belt length or the height in the axis of rotation. The small masses involved mean that centrifugal forces are low, and that rotary speeds of up to 720 degrees per second are possible. The lightweight chains can be used horizontally or vertically.

The single-component, injection-moulded belt has chambers attached to it that are filled without needing to open or closed the chain links. Users simply press the lines into the chain from the outside. The chains can be used, for example, to accommodate servomotor, control, bus or fibre optic cables, as well as hoses routing fluids.

Applications are expected to include robotics and machines ranging from assembly equipment to amusement park rides. A further possible area of application is in wind power systems, where the turbine blades need to be controlled through a support which must be free to turn.

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The modular Twisterband system does not need to be customised to individual user specifications. One size is already available and larger and smaller versions are planned.

www.igus.de

Pneumatic Tips

An innovative application for pneumatics helps power a unique  vehicle. The Hydrogen Hybrid Bus (HHB), was built by Golden, CO-based Proterra with funding from the U.S. Federal Transit Administration (FTA) as part of the National Fuel Cell Bus Program, and is managed by the Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE).

The HHB is operating  on existing bus routes through the Victoria, BC adding hilly, cold weather operations to the ongoing evaluation of the bus. The bus received significant positive exposure by operating throughout the Winter Olympic Games and was featured as part of a formal demonstration and media event on March 11, sponsored by the Southern Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Coalition (SHFCC).

The  bus is powered by lithium titanate batteries and two 16 kw hydrogen fuel cells, producing clean electric power in a lighter, quieter, and more aerodynamic design that is better suited for today’s transportation demands. The  only emission is water vapor. Although the bus was certified for use in the U.S., it successfully underwent additional testing and safety inspections in order to be driven in Canada. With more than twice the energy efficiency of other hybrid buses and four times that of conventional diesel buses, Proterra buses combine tremendous environmental benefits with substantial cost savings to the operator.

Hydrogen Hybrid Bus Details:

• The HHB is an electric hybrid bus that was purpose built for an electric drive train and can be configured with a wide variety of ‘engines’ or as battery electric only. This version uses clean fuel cells as the ‘engine’.
• The HHB carries 29 kilograms of hydrogen on board and can achieve up to a 480  km  range.
• The use of composite materials for the body makes it much lighter – and stronger – than conventional buses.
• Initial BC Transit evaluation has determined that the fuel economy for this bus in shadow service is approximately 70% better than typical  diesel buses.
• South Carolina and the University of South Carolina were selected as the primary site for the bus demonstration and evaluation because of their prominence in fuel cell and hydrogen research.
• The HHB meets Buy America Requirements while utilizing fuel cells provided by Hydrogenics (headquartered in Mississauga, Canada) representing a great US/Canadian partnership for technology development and job creation.

The Hydrogen Hybrid Bus was deployed in August 2009 and is engaged in a two-year demonstration and evaluation project to prove the feasibility of advanced hydrogen-fuel-cell technology applications for mass transit. The demonstration and evaluation project will be conducted in three cities; Columbia, SC, Austin, TX, and Victoria, B.C. Upon completion of the BC Transit demonstration, the bus will return to Columbia to continue its evaluation as part of the University of South Carolina shuttle fleet.

Pneumatic Tips

Seven thousand times a day, in four miles of tubing laced efficiently behind walls from basement to rooftop, a pneumatic tube system shuttles foot-long containers carrying everything from blood to medication. In a hospital the size of Stanford, where a quarter-mile’s distance might separate a tissue specimen from its destination lab, making good time means better medicine.

Stanford Hospital’s container transport system, which also serves the adjacent Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, is one of the largest in the country. Its architecture is a sophisticated design of switching points, waiting areas, sending and receiving points. It hosts 124 stations (every nursing unit has its own); 141 transfer units, 99 inter-zone connectors and 29 blowers. To help alert employees to the arrival of containers, the system has more than three dozen different combinations of chiming tones.

Such pneumatic tube systems date back to the early 19^th century, where they drove the workings of postal services, department stores and other commercial businesses whose physical size demanded something faster than standard human pace. But those versions were designed to move paper, which could handle a hard landing. When computers began to eliminate paper with electronically deliverable data, tube systems lost their value until engineers figured out a way to control airflow to slow down the containers for a soft landing at their destination station.

At Stanford Hospital, before 1993, a team of about 20 people had the job of transporting the multitudes of tissue, medications and documents. However, the increasing size of the Hospital, and the addition of two adjacent buildings, the Blake Wilbur Cancer Center and the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, made the tube system option the most modern solution.

Depending on the diameter of a tube, cylinders can reach speeds of up to 25 feet per second, about 18 miles per hour, far faster than any human could ever manage.

It was also a question of best use of employee time, if, as often happened, a courier wasn’t available when a specimen needed to get to the lab. Having a nurse leave a patient’s bedside for a minutes-long run to the lab made no sense.

Reliable speed is crucial when the system carries blood products, some of which are temperature-sensitive and, by regulations, must be discarded if not properly maintained. The tube system, said Lab Operation Services manager Gay Routh, “is vital, very vital. I don’t know what we’d do without the tube system, especially when it comes to tests like those that happen in surgery. When arterial blood gases are sent from the operating room, we need to return results in a very short period of time, so physicians know if they need to change settings on a monitor. Years ago, before the tubes, we would get a phone call and we’d have to send somebody. It definitely slowed our turnaround time.”

The Hospital’s Chief Engineer Leander Robinson commands the system from a small basement office, where computer monitors light up every time someone puts a container in a shute, types in a numerical address and presses the ‘send’ button. The screen displays a tiny icon that reflects the container’s travel through various switches and transfers, but it moves so quickly it’s actually hard to track its passage. Even during the heaviest flow through the system, between noon and 2 p.m., a container can cover the longest start-to-finish distance ― 1,500 feet ― in less than three minutes.

The system has a complete set of checks and balances, sensing where containers are needed and sending them. Some departments, like the operating rooms, have dedicated lines that guarantee them a straight shot to the lab. “Blood products get first priority,” said Lee Chua, blood transfusion services manager.

The system does occasionally falter, but it’s operative 98.8 percent of the time, Robinson said. And no cylinder has ever gotten stuck in a tube, he said. He has software that monitors the system, charting its use station by station and watching especially those times when someone sends a cylinder “stat” ― the highest priority coding. It’s also a work in constant progress; the Hospital continues to evolve and locations can change. “The tube is everywhere,” Robinson said, “and the directories ever changing.”

Pneumatic Tips

The tube bending facility fabricates around three to four thousand parts per week, using tubing ranging from a few millimeters in diameter to over 100 mm. The materials used include titanium, aircraft-grade aluminum, and corrosion-resistant steels which are expensive. 

The company now uses a 65 mm diameter all-electric tube bender. The precision and repeatability of set-up with the servomotor-controlled architecture nearly eliminates scrap. The machine paid for itself in three months.

Bends are typically made to 1 mm 3D envelope accuracy – sometimes as tight as 0.3 mm.

The ductility characteristics of titanium, and in particular thin-wall titanium tubing, mean that slowing the bending process improves forming.

Servomotor control allows GKN to create bending programs that precisely control all aspects of the tooling’s speed and force, even at very low speeds.

The latest machinery installations are two combined left- and right-hand bending machines, which overcome a long-standing problem with specific component shapes. These include tubular parts with many closely spaced bends, and tubes with coil structures with the mechanical flexibility to accommodate flexing movement during the operation of wing flaps.

Work pieces can be transferred automatically from left to right hand tool heads as many times as required to bend the required shape in a single stage. Batch fabrication times have come down from three days to 1.5 hours for one of the coiled parts, and from 2.5 hours to just 30 minutes for a batch of the multi-bend part that involved switching machines.

Unison pioneered the concept of all-electric tube benders, and is the only UK manufacturer of this advanced type of forming machinery.  Unison tube bending machines are available in the US from Horn Machine Tools.

Unison Ltd.
www.unisonltd.com

::Design World::

Pneumatic Tips

IPT’s High Pressure Tubing is rated for use in temperatures from -100° to 600°F (-73° to 315°C), with maximum working pressure of 20,000 PSI (1030 bar) or 60,000 PSI (4140 bar). Tubing is supplied in 18-22 ft. lengths, with custom lengths available upon request.

This tubing is well suited for use in industrial applications where types AISI 304 and 304L provide insufficient corrosion resistance. Typical applications include heat exchangers, condensers, pipelines, cooling and heating coils, as well as applications in the offshore oil and gas, chemical, petrochemical, pulp and paper, and food industries.

Innovative Pressure Technologies

www.inpressure.com

::Design World::

Pneumatic Tips

Medium and high pressure products that are reviewed include needle valves, ball valves, check valves, double block and bleed valves, 2-, 3- and 5-way manifold valves, as well as fittings and adapters. Custom solutions and specialty products that are reviewed include banjo fittings, monel drip pots, fusible plugs, manifolds, fittings, double block and bleed valves, relief valves, ball valves and excess flow valves.

Innovative Pressure Technologies

www.inpressure.com

::Design World::

Pneumatic Tips

The PFA core tube is reinforced with a silicone layer bonded directly to the core and braid layer, using a process that removes the need for glues and avoids leachables. The braid layer is a 300 series stainless steel braid. Protecting the entire construction is a non-contaminating silicone cover. Temperature rating is -65 to 450°F (-53 to 230°C).

Swagelok Co.
www.swagelok.com

::Design World::

Pneumatic Tips