At a shipyard in Finland, our distributor found an application using blowers which needed a more viable solution. The application was to dry the interior of large tanks after coating, and the original solution was to use a blower mounted to a 12” opening on top of the tank. The airflow from the blower was forced into the tank in an effort to dry the coating but often ended up without any drying effect at all.
This problem was due to vapors (non-combustible vapors) produced by the coating process which are more dense than the ambient air, causing them to collect on the bottom of the tank. The airflow produced by the blower was not sufficient to force these vapors from the tank, causing a long drying cycle for the coating process or no drying at all.
But, these same tanks feature a 3” diameter plug in the bottom of the tank to allow for draining if needed. And, this opening is almost perfectly sized for a 2” EXAIR Super Air Amplifier model 120022. (Model 120022 has an outer diameter of 2.95” at the side which provides incoming ambient air.) By removing the plug in the bottom of the tank and installing a 2” Super Air Amplifier, this tank can be fully dried in a fraction of the time required for an electric blower setup. The end user estimated an 83% reduction in drying times (from one hour per tank to ~10 minutes), and gained confidence that the tanks would be 100% dry and free of vapor when using the EXAIR solution.
One additional benefit of this Super Air Amplifier solution was increased reliability. The electrical supply to this shipyard is unstable, resulting in blackouts and surges which shut down electric blowers. But because the Air Amplifiers do not rely on electricity and sufficient storage capacity was available for compressed air, these units are unaffected by electrical supply problems.
If you have a similar application or would like to discuss a problem currently present in your production facilities, contact an EXAIR Application Engineer. We’re here to help.
Lee Evans
Application Engineer
LeeEvans@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_LE