November 2, 2009
There is a general lack of understanding of how compressed air flow is measured. Liquids being non compressible, can be measured by a direct reading because their mass does not change with pressure. They can be expressed in units of cubic feet/minute (CFM).
Gases though, being compressible , will have different masses depending on how much they are compressed. Thus when measuring gasses, some standard pressure needs to be established for comparison. The universally accepted pressure is atmospheric. A gas expressed in units of SCFM is the volume it would occupy if released to atmospheric pressure.
Some examples:
If you had 1.0 cubic foot of air under 100 pounds of pressure, when released to atmospheric pressure it would occupy 6.8 standard cubic feet.
If you had 3.4 cubic feet of air under 30 pounds of pressure, when released to atmospheric pressure it would occupy 6.8 standard cubic feet.
These examples demonstrate two measured volumes at different pressures are in fact equal in mass and why direct measurements of gasses have to be converted to some standard pressure when doing gas flow calculations.
Joe Panfalone
Application Engineer
joepanfalone@exair.com
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Compressed Air Optimization | Tagged: japanfalone | 
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Posted by japanfalone
October 30, 2009
Have you ever wondered how companies who require large volumes of very clean water (cleaner than what you get from the tap) get it? They use special filtering systems. Some of which are referred to as ion exchange filtering systems. There are others referred to as reverse osmosis filtering systems as well. Those of you who have whole house filtering systems that you maintain might know what I’m talking about.
These filtering systems rely on a special resin through which the water is passed in order to remove the impurities. Over time, the resin’s ability to lock onto the impurities declines and so it must be changed. For industrial applications, the vessels in which the filtering resin is housed are rather large and not very accessible. This makes changing the resin a real challenge.
In comes the Line Vac, an in-line compressed air conveying product. The Model 6063 Line Vac in 1-1/2″ hose size can be used to suck the resin out of the filtering vessel in about 1/2 the time it took to do it using more manual/conventional methods. And again, when it comes time to re-fill the vessel, simply reverse the Line Vac around to suck the material out of the super sacks and blow it up into the filtering vessel.
Are you responsible for similar filtering media changeouts? Perhaps you should look into a Line Vac as well.
Neal Raker
Application Engineer
nealraker@exair.com
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Line Vac | Tagged: air operated conveyors, ndraker | 
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Posted by ndraker
October 30, 2009
Those of you already familiar with our products know that using a Line Vac to move a powder is typically not an ideal application, as there is great potential for a dust cloud on the outlet due to the high velocity with which the Line Vac moves material. However, a customer who called me last week has already adapted his system to deal with this problem, and was looking for an even faster way to accomplish his task.
The customer is a manufacturer of animal grooming products such as clippers, etc. They make many of the component parts via plastic injection molding. Thus, they needed a way to move the bulk molding compound powder up to the hopper. They were currently using our model 6083 1.5″ Line Vac to do the job. This was an improvement over their previous, manual process. However, they were looking for even faster material transport.
Thus, I recommended our model 150150 1.5″ Heavy Duty Line Vac. Installation of this unit will require virtually no modification of their current system, since it is the same size unit. However, the Heavy Duty Line Vac has significantly higher material conveying capacity. Thus, they will be able to further increase their material flow rate, and thus production throughput.
Emily Mortimer
Application Engineer
emilymortimer@exair.com
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Line Vac | Tagged: esmortimer | 
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Posted by esmortimer
October 29, 2009
Improve the efficiency of your compressed air system with these 6 simple steps.
1. Measure the air consumption to find sources that use a lot of compressed air.
2. Find and fix the leaks in your compressed air system.
3. Upgrade your blow off, cooling and drying operations using engineered compressed air products.
4. Turn off the compressed air when it is not in use.
5. Use intermediate storage of compressed air near the point of use.
6. Control the air pressure at the point of use to minimize air consumption.
For more information on these steps and products to help implement them, click here.
Kirk Edwards
Application Engineer
kirkedwards@exair.com
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Posted by kaedwards
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