Despite years of warnings — and the development of OSHA standards — there are still many dangerous compressed air blow wands in service at facilities throughout the world. Countless injuries and even deaths could have been prevented if safer devices were used or the blowing eliminated altogether. Fig. 1 shows a wand used to clean […]
Air Compressors
VMAC releases its 2022 “State Of The Mobile Compressed Air Industry Report”
The 2022 edition of VMAC’s State of The Mobile Compressed Air Industry Report has been released, sharing fascinating insights from mobile air users. “We are pleased to release VMAC’s latest research on the mobile compressed air industry,” said Tod Gilbert, President of VMAC Global Technology Inc. “There is a lot of uncertainty with global events […]
A leak detection fail!
A recent question received by email: I need some help from you regarding air leak calculation. We just purchased a new air leak detector that calculates leakage flow. We have high air leakage in our LPG bottling plant and our leak detector showed a flow of 9130.2 L/S. If we convert this to CFM then it will total […]
Compressed air fail: Frankenstein controls
By Ron Marshall A wood products manufacturer decided to save money by hiring a small service company to maintain its compressors. The company had minimal experience in repairing compressors, but agreed to do the job. The company didn’t have parts available to replace the faulty controls on the two screw compressors — so they did […]
Compressed air fail: The mystery filter
By Ron Marshall A building products company had a compressed air system that featured one large 1,500-cfm compressor and three smaller ones. The compressed air flow had grown to a point where the large compressor could only be turned off during shutdown periods; when it was turned off, the plant pressure would collapse. The large […]
Global drinks manufacturer cuts air and inefficiencies
When a 40 bar turbo compressor situated within an internationally renowned British-based producer of soft drinks broke down, it was faced with two choices: repair or reconfigure. Choosing the latter, the producer found that the old proverb ‘as one door closes, another opens’ proved true. Founded in the late 1930s by an entrepreneurial chemist, Britvic […]
How can you use compressed air storage to reduce peaks?
A press operation used a pulse of compressed air for cleaning operations for 10 seconds, once every 10 minutes. The compressed air flow to the press during the cleaning was 400 cfm, a quite significant flow, and data logger measurements of the air compressors found that each time the blow happened, a 150-hp compressor would […]
Compressed air fail: Load sharing
A large foundry had four large 200-hp air compressors that were water-cooled and were having overheating problems. The units were capable of inlet modulation control, where the inlet valve of the compressor closes off the intake to control the output flow. Use of this control mode reduces the flow output of the compressors and the […]
Compressed air fail: Dryer overload
A building products company purchased a compressor with 1,520 cfm capacity to help with the increased load after a plant expansion. Various dryer sizes were available, but one sized at 1,600 cfm was selected, rather than choosing the next size up, to save purchase costs. Shortly after installation, the production machine operators started complaining about […]
The magic of compressed air heat recovery
A facilities manager at a building products plant attended a compressed air efficiency seminar sponsored by his local utility. He learned about optimizing air compressors, filters, dryers, and piping. He discovered how to arrange to have a baseline taken of his compressed air system to assess its efficiency. He discovered the excellent savings he could […]
