I had a customer that was making steel blades. The machining operation drilled a bevel into the side every 6” (152 mm). He needed to blow off the chips from the surface. They designed a box that they indicated as a “Blow Box”. This box contained four ¼” nipples that were smashed at the end to blow onto the blade. The purpose of the blow box was to blow the chips from the surface of the blade and the machined bevel and to contain the chips. The chips would fall into a bin underneath the blow box for recycling. The design is shown below.
The chips were not completely being blown off the blade or from the inside of the bevel. He decided to contact EXAIR to see if we could help. In his design of the blow box, we discovered two issues. The open pipe was using too much compressed air causing the air pressure to drop in his system. The second problem was the orientation of the nozzles. The chips that were being blown off would settle back onto the blade as it exited. I recommended to use four of our model 1122 2” Flat Super Air Nozzles to replace the open pipe nozzles. I also suggested to have them mounted on the side of the blow box to blow across the blade.
The Flat Super Air Nozzle has a strong force that can be directed to the flat surface. With the other setup, the suspended chips could fall back onto the blade. To help remove the chips from the box, I suggested the 1 ½” Heavy Duty Line Vac model 150150. He could place the vacuum opening on the side of the blow box to capture the loose chips and transfer them into the recycle bin below. The four ¼” NPT nipples were using roughly 276 SCFM (7,815 SLPM) of compressed air. By replacing the flattened pipes with the model 1122 2” Flat Super Air Nozzle, it would save him 190 SCFM (5,380 SLPM) of compressed air. The customer was happy with a clean blade and his compressor was happy for the reduce load.
If you ever come across a situation where you need help with compressed air applications, you can always call EXAIR and speak to one of our Application Engineers.
John Ball
Application Engineer
Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: twitter.com/exair_jb