As a life-long smart aleck, this phrase has always been one of my favorite ways to gently request that someone move to one side or the other so that I can see what they’re looking at. As I’ve mellowed with age, it’s largely replaced the more demanding “Yo, down in front!!” which I’ve learned to save for only the most urgent of situations. These usually occur at sporting events, where, unfortunately, it’s some of the more tame language you’ll hear at stadiums and ballparks these days.
In industry, there are certainly proper places for doors: Nothing beats a solid-core, well-sealed door to keep welding smoke out of the office space at a manufacturing company. On a smaller scale, sand blast cabinet manufacturers realize that their cabinets’ doors are so important, they put switches on them to prevent you from starting one up with the door open.
But what if it’s not practical – or possible – to put a solid boundary between a contained area and the general environment? EXAIR Super Air Knives are successfully used in “air barrier” applications in industries as diverse as metal processing, pharmaceuticals, high detail printing, and commercial laundry equipment.
Air Knives aren’t the only EXAIR product with documented success in this area: In addition to cleaning the rod, this Super Air Wipe, installed flush with the wall of the enclosure, also keeps the oil & mist contained inside the processing machinery:
Our Line Vac even got a piece of the action with a commercial maker of baked goods: A part of their process involves mixing sugar into a vat of melted butter. The heat and steam tended to melt the sugar, though, before it made it all the way down the chute into the vat. This not only wasted a good deal of the sugar, but made for a real hassle in cleaning the chute. They installed a Model 6066 3” Stainless Steel Line Vac in the chute, which not only kept the sugar moving fast enough to prevent it from melting, but it also kept the heat & steam from “migrating” up the chute.
If you have an air barrier application you’d like to discuss – or any compressed air application, for that matter – we’d like to hear from you!
Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
EXAIR Corporation
(513)671-3322 local
(800)923-9247 toll free
(513)671-3363 fax
Web: www.exair.com
Blog: http://blog.exair.com/
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