Month: July 2010

Oil soaked waters, absorbent oil booms and static?

Published on by Neal RakerLeave a comment

 

Unfortunately, oil spills and leaks are becoming an all too common sight for areas in and around the Gulf of Mexico. It appears that BP and the government have regained control of the blown out oil well. Focus will obviously be shifting to the huge clean-up effort under way.

With this in mind, companies who make the oil containment and absorbent booms are ramping up production to be ready for the increase. One such manufacturer contacted EXAIR recently for help in solving one of their production problems.

The absorbent material gets blown into a long, sock-like, structure through a 4 inch diameter hose. The absorbent material is polypropylene which is also a non-conducting material. As you can imagine, when you blow a non-conductive material through a hose that is also non-conducting, you end up with a rather large static charge that causes tremendous feeding problems. Material becomes bridged inside the hose and blocks the flow which stops the filling process.

The customer was looking for a reasonable way in which the static could be kept to a reduced level so that the process could run, un-interrupted, for as long as needed to meet the new, higher demand. The production engineer involved knew that EXAIR provides a variety of static elimination solutions for industrial applications and so he contacted with us to discuss the options.

Once I had an understanding of what he needed, I was able to recommend use of (4) Model 7199 Ionizing Points and (1) model 7940 Four outlet power supply to create an ionizing collar that could be mounted in-line with the existing 4” hose to supply the needed ions to keep the inside of the production hose static free. Note: the customer did have to make their own conductive collar to ease mounting of the Ionizing points into the conveying line, but that was a small matter due to the problem being such a difficult one to solve any other way. An “ionizing collar” would be what I would call a conductive piece of pipe large enough to fit into the existing conveying line and which has holes drilled and tapped into its side to accommodate mounting of the Ionizing Points.

Before I continue, you might ask, “Why didn’t they try static dissipative (conductive) hose?”. They did, and soon found out that while there was a small improvement due to the conductive nature, it still was only a passive means for static reduction. There was so much static being generated that the customer needed an active system like the Ionizing Point to keep static out of the filling hose completely.

The customer was able to install their static eliminating collar, with Ionizing Points, into the fill line and run production smoothly, without having to stop to clean out the fill hose every 10 minutes. The solution was so successful that the customer is going to make more units to accommodate their other 7 filling lines.

Hopefully, the story with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will have the same good ending as did our customer’s application story and we can all return to our wonderful, pristine beaches again.

Neal Raker
Application Engineer
nealraker@exair.com

Say What You Can Do and Do What You Say You Can

Published on by 1 Comment

These are words  given to me by an elderly neighbor friend from my adolescent days of mowing lawns. They have resonated with me throughout my years and has proven to be time-tested advice.

I recently read an article from a marketing consultant that claimed there is a paradox between what you promise and what you can deliver. He claims that If you promise very little, you don’t get a chance to deliver because I’ll ignore you. And if you promise too much, you don’t get a chance to deliver, because I won’t believe you.

I really do not see a paradox but a metric to measure your ability to serve your market. If you promise only what you can deliver and it is not good enough for your customer, then your services are not robust enough to serve that market. You need to improve to meet the challenge.

As for promising too much how can you do that if you only promise what you can do? If you can do it, let your customer know why you can and with examples of what you have done. If you both are confident that it can be done then it is a sale.

I had a mowing customer that needed her property line cleared of overgrowth. I wanted the job but not having a driver’s license I could not haul the refuse to the dump. I could have told her I could do the job but her knowing that I did not drive she would not have believed me and not given me the job.

I stuck to my mantra of say what you can do and do what you say you can do. Since what I could do was not good enough, I hired a friend with a pick up truck to haul the stuff away.

I asked for the job and told her how I would tackle it. She and I were both confident with the arrangement and I got the job.

Lucky for me I found a company to work for with similar work ethics. When you call in  for technical assistance, we application engineers drawing upon our experience, will share with you what will and will not work for your application. On those situations where it is questionable, we will tell you so. Then EXAIR will back it up with a an unconditional 30 day guarantee. If for any reason you are not satisfied with the results you can return it for full credit.

Joe Panfalone
Application Engineer
joepanfalone@exair.com

Can You Hear Me Now?

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

No this blog isn’t about a cell phone commercial, it’s about an application call I received this past week.  The call was from a customer that is trying to do an audit on his facility.  This was not an air audit to find all the leaks or an energy audit, but a sound audit.  The customer ran a production facility that had a regulation implemented to reduce all noise levels to 85 dBA or below.  They had purchased several engineered nozzles and air knives from us but still had open pipes and other devices in their system that they were unsure of the sound level produced.  What I offered to the customer was our Digital Sound Level Meter. 

 

The DSLM will measure sound levels from 35dB – 130dB and has a frequency range of 31.5Hz – 8 kHz, it is also NIST Certified.  The unit is used to monitor what sound levels you may have at your operator stations to make sure you are not exceeding the OSHA maximum allowable noise exposure or to find out if one blow off operation is in fact louder than another. 
With the unit in hand the customer was able to perform his sound audit and discovered that some non engineered nozzles that he thought were under 85 dBA were in fact louder and exceeding his requirement.  These nozzles were all removed and replaced with EXAIR nozzles that meet or exceed OSHA requirements.
The DSLM also allowed him to determine which of his operators were going to be required to wear hearing protection and those that were not.  The company now performs a monthly check on all of their systems to ensure nothing has changed and that none of their equipment needs replaced.  They also send their DSLM to us once a year to have it recalibrated and certified.
All in all the Digital Sound Level Meter can save employees hearing and help you to make sure that your nozzles are all performing at the sound levels you think they are.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com

The End of the World As We Know It

Published on by Bryan Peters1 Comment

How many times do you watch the news or read the newspaper and wonder if REM was right back in 1987?

We have the various natural disasters like floods, earthquakes, typhoons, hurricanes and tsunamis around the globe.  Check.

And we have the man-made versions as well.

The spring and summer of 2010 has been spent by millions watching a webcam over a mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico with growing outrage.  Maybe the latest cap just placed on the well is working – or maybe it’s making things worse and the reservoir could simply collapse and leak even more oil uncontrolled into the Gulf.  The “top kill” solution was attempted but didn’t work.  The “static kill” solution could begin soon – or maybe not because there seems to be a hurricane on the way.  The relief wells could be the answer – or maybe not because it’s hard to intercept a pipe so small with precision over a mile deep in the water.  Alarmingly, no one knows with any certainty how this story will end, and the multiple failures of safety and emergency systems can’t make anyone feel comfortable about all the other platforms out there.

And now China now has its own, albeit smaller, oil disaster to clean up – complete with economic, human and wildlife casualties and an environmental impact forecast to last for a decade.

Our global climate is warming at an alarming rate because of our disregard as a species for the impact of our actions.  Or maybe it isn’t.  Wait, maybe it is.  The debate continues…

And did you hear that we are running out of fresh water?

Most of the situations above are far beyond the control of most business owners and employees.  There is very little that most can do, for example, about the BP oil disaster except hope that the situation is resolved soon and urge the powers that be to hold those responsible accountable for their actions and inactions.

All-in-all, it can be quite discouraging.  In the end, we can only hope to contribute some positive news in areas that we actually CAN influence.  Individually and as a collective whole, we should do what we can within the scopes of our businesses to improve the energy and environmental impacts within our control.

Back in April, I posted the steps EXAIR has taken to reduce our impact on the environment.  Yesterday, we updated that information and added it to our website.  Since this kind of commitment brings along with it a never-ending quest for improvement, we’ll update our sustainability plan with new information as it becomes available.

Do your part to the degree that you are able within your sphere of influence, and we’ll help you spread the word.

If your business has undertaken these sorts of measures, no matter how big or how small, let us know via e-mail (sustainability@exair.com), Twitter (@exair) or comment on this blog.

We’ll help you let the world know that most businesses ARE trying to be responsible corporate citizens.

Bryan Peters
President
bryanpeters@exair.com