Air entrainment is the phenomenon that occurs when air (or any gas) under pressure is released from a device in such a way that a low pressure is generated in the immediate area of the air (or gas) discharge. Air (or gas) from the surrounding environment is then pulled (or entrained) into the discharged air stream, increasing its volumetric flow rate. EXAIR Corporation has been engineering & manufacturing compressed air products to take maximum advantage of this phenomena since 1983…and we’ve gotten better & better at it over the past 36 years.
Obviously, the first thing that’s so great about air entrainment is…free air flow. Every cubic foot that’s entrained means that’s a cubic foot that your compressor didn’t have to spend energy compressing. Considering the EXAIR Super Air Knife’s entrainment ratio of 40:1, that makes for a VERY efficient use of your compressed air.
Another thing that’s so great about air entrainment is…it’s quiet. As you can see from the graphic at the top of this blog, the Super Air Knife entrains air (the lighter, curved blue arrows) into the primary compressed air stream (the darker, straight blue arrows) from above and below. The outer layers of the total developed flow are lower in velocity, and serve as a sound-attenuating boundary layer. The sound level of a Super Air Knife (any length…here’s why) is only 69dBA. That means if you’re talking with someone and a Super Air Knife is running right next to you, you can still use your “inside voice” and continue your conversation, unaffected by the sound of the air flow.
I always thought it would be helpful to have more than just a graphic with blue arrows to show the effect & magnitude of air entrainment. A while back, I accidentally stumbled across a stunning visual depiction of just that, using a Super Air Knife. I had the pleasure of talking with a caller about how effective a Super Air Knife might be in blowing light gauge paperboard pieces. So I set one up in the EXAIR Demo Room, blowing straight upwards, and tossed paper plates into the air flow. It worked just as expected, until one of the paper plates got a little closer to the Super Air Knife than I had planned:
As you can see, the tremendous amount of air flow being entrained…from both sides…was sufficient to pull in lightweight objects and ‘stick’ them to the surface that the entrained air was being drawn past. While it doesn’t empirically prove the 40:1 ratio, it indisputably demonstrates that an awful lot of air is moving there.
If you’re looking for a quiet, efficient, and OSHA compliant solution for cleaning, blow off, drying, cooling…anything you need an even, consistent curtain of air flow for – look no further than the EXAIR Super Air Knife. If you’d like to discuss a particular application and/or product selection, give me a call.
Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
EXAIR Corporation
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